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OBERLIN 



THURSDAY LECTURES 



ADDRESSES 



AND 



ESSAYS, 




\Y 



^si^VfASM^ 



JAMES MONROE. 



A^V\W 



OBERLIN, OHIO: 

EDWARD J. GOODRICH 
1897. 






Copyright, 1897, 
By Edward J. Goodrich. 



:>EARCE, RANDOLPH AND COMPANY, 

OBERLIN, OHIO. 



PREPACE. 

Many of my pupils have asked that I would publish 
a small book containing such ot my lectures as were con- 
nected with some of the more interesting experiences of 
my life. This volume is an attempt to comply, in part, 
with the wish so expressed. Most of these papers had 
their place in an institution known to all Oberlin students 
as the Thursday Lecture. Two are occasional addresses ; 
and for the privilege of reprinting two others in this col- 
lection, I am indebted to the courtesy of Messrs. Hough- 
ton, Mifflin and Company and the Bibliotheca Sacra 
Company, The obligation is specially acknowledged in 
the proper place. The lectures are not printed in the 
order in which they were delivered, but in the chrono- 
logical order of the events described in them. In this 
way they become, in a measure and indirectly, auto- 
biographical, which my pupils have expressed a desire 
that they should be. Some of these lectures were deliv- 
ered as long ago as the early eighties, which will explain 
the occasional incompleteness in the account of men and 
events. It has been thought best to leave the lectures 
substantially as they were presented at the time. This 
book is dedicated to my pupils as a memorial of the 
many pleasant hours which I have passed in their society. 

JAMES MONROE. 
Oberlin, May, 1897, 



CONTENTS. 



The Early Abolitionists.— I. Introductory. i 

The Early Abolitionists.— II. Personal 

Recollections 27 

The Early Abolitionists.— III. Frederick 

Douglass 57 

My First Legislative Experience.— I. Work 
IN THE Legislature 95 

My First Legislative Experience. — II. Re- 
ception BY the People 131 

A Journey to Virginia in December, 1859 158 

Special Duties of Consuls of the United 
States during the Civil War 185 

William H. Seward and the Foreign Affairs 
OF the United States 211 

The Hayes-Tilden Electoral Commission... 254 

Leading Speakers in Congress from 1871 to 
1881 306 

Joseph as a Statesman 348 



THE EARLY ABOLITIONISTS- 

I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

A THURSDAY LECTURE. 

Until nearly the close of the last century, 
and especially during what is known as the 
Revolutionary period, the prevailing opinion 
both North and South, in the colonies and 
States of this country, was favorable to the 
abolition of slavery. The testimony to this is 
so abundant and so familiar that it cannot be 
necessary to detain you by quoting any portion 
of it. It may be sufficient to say that the Or- 
dinance of 1787, which made slavery forever 
impossible in all the territory northwest of the 
Ohio — which was all the territory that the 
United States then owned — was but the nat- 
ural expression of the general feeling. Daniel 
Webster, in his celebrated speech of the 7th of 
March, 1850, says that this ordinance received 
the vote of every Southern member of the 
Confederate Congress, and that but one vote 



2 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

was given against it, and that by a Northern 
man. So ahnost universal was the anti-slavery 
sentiment of that time. 

But during the first thirty years of the pres- 
ent century, a complete revolution of opinion 
took place upon this question. Slavery, from 
being a subject of condemnation and legal re- 
striction, became so intrenched in the popular 
sympathy that it could not be freely discussed, 
even in the Northern States, without some risk 
of personal injury. It is interesting to inquire 
what caused this change, which is one of the 
most remarkable known in history. Mr. Web- 
ster, in the speech already referred to, tells us 
very truly that it was caused by the sudden and 
enormous development of cotton production. 
And this expansion of cotton culture was due, 
although he does not mention it, to the inven- 
tion of a simple and inexpensive machine by Eli 
Whitney, a Connecticut school teacher, then 
residing in Savannah. 

I am largely indebted to Horace Greeley's 
^'American Conflict" and to Henry Wilson's 
"Rise and Fall of the Slave Power" for my 
summary of historical facts contained in these 
opening paragraphs. 

Before the invention of the cotton gin, that 
product was hardly worth the cost of cultiva- 



THE EARLY ABOLITIONISTS. 3 

tion, on account of the difficulty of separating 
the seed from the fiber. A negro who had 
cleaned a pound of cotton was regarded as hav- 
ing done a fair day's work. But the same 
negro, with the aid of the gin, when instructed 
in its use, could clean three hundred pounds in 
a day — which was accomplishing in a day what 
had formerly been the work of a year. Thus 
was brought to pass by a single mind one of 
the most marvelous revolutions in production 
and trade the world has ever seen. The pro- 
duction of cotton advanced from about seven or 
eight thousand bales in 1793, the year of the 
invention, worth perhaps $700,000, to one 
million of bales in 1830, worth $45,000,000, 
5,761,000 bales in 1880, worth $242,000,000, 
and 7,300,000 bales in 1890, of the value of 
$308,400,000. Cotton culture,which had been 
held in light esteem, soon became immensely 
profitable, and the cotton gin took its place 
among the {^\n great inventions that have 
changed the fortunes of mankind. Whitney 
obtained a patent for his invention, but he de- 
rived no benefit from it. His private workshop 
was broken into, and his machine, when nearly 
completed, was carried off. Machines closely 
resembling it soon appeared in different parts 
of the South. Of course he prosecuted for 



4 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

infringement of his patent; but witnesses were 
afraid to appear, or juries failed to convict, or 
the law's delays wore out his strength and ex- 
hausted his slender means, and when, in 1807, 
he finally obtained an effective judgment for his 
protection in the United States Court for the 
District of Georgia, his patent was already in 
the last year of its existence. An effort for its 
renewal, which he subsequently made, was de- 
feated by the votes and influence of Southern 
members of Congress. When the account with 
his invention was balanced he was not a cent 
the richer for it. It has been stated by Horace 
Greeley that he conferred upon the slave States 
a benefit which, at a moderate estimate, was 
worth a thousand millions of dollars, and they 
gave him nothing but persecution in return. 
This need not surprise us. Why should those 
who had a traditional and long-cultivated indif- 
ference to men's claims to the ownership of 
themselves and to the society of their wives 
and children, hesitate to withhold from a 
Yankee mechanic the proper reward of his 
labor.? 

Those of you who are curious in tracing re- 
moter relations and results, will be interested 
to learn that after his failure in the South, 
Whitney returned to Connecticut, where he 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 5 

acquired a fortune by the invention and manu- 
facture of an improved fire-arm. The Whitney 
gun with the subsequent improvements be- 
came, as Mr. Greeley tells us, one of the 
most effective weapons of war known to the 
world. As the American rifled musket, it 
was widely used during the late Civil conflict, 
and the dead inventor, through a thousand mes- 
sages of fire, uttered his protest against the old 
ill-usage. His first invention the slaveholders 
took without his consent; his second they took 
without their own consent. 

"Though the mills of God grind slowly, 
Yet they grind exceeding small; 
Though with patience he stands waiting, 
With exactness he grinds all." 

Of course, as a result of the invention of the 
cotton gin, the market value of slaves and 
slave labor was greatly increased. A general 
change of opinion took place in the South as 
to the merits of slavery. Through commerce, 
manufactures, and political and ecclesiastical 
relations, the same change extended to the 
North. All ranks, all professions, all depart- 
ments of business, were infected by this new 
poison. The warm heart of Christian philan- 
thropy was chilled in this atmosphere of cruel 
and godless worldliness. By the year 1830, it 



6 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

had become the fashion to defend slavery on 
its merits. "There had always been slavery 
and there always would be. It was a part of 
the divine order. It was sustained by the 
Bible. Moses was a slaveholder and Paul had 
returned fugitives. It was a good thing for the 
slave, who would be worse off if he were set 
free. Above all, it was very profitable." We 
had, at length, a remedy for the unprofitable- 
ness of cotton culture, but where was the 
remedy for this fearful demoralization.^ Who 
could deliver us from this degrading and appar- 
ently hopeless bondage to Mammon.? 

Mr. Webster said that he did not blame the 
South for this change of opinion — that all gen- 
erations of men had been controlled by self-in- 
terest — that "all that had happened was nat- 
ural." But Mr. Webster once remembered that 
some other things are natural — that conscience 
is natural — that hatred of oppression and sym- 
pathy with the oppressed are natural — that the 
fear of God and of his retribution is natural — 
that accumulated wrath over long-endured 
wrong is natural. In these forces, which Mr. 
Webster seemed to have forgotten, lay the 
remedy for the nation's debasement. God has 
provided, in the nature of things, an antidote 
for great evils — and the greater the evil, the 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 7 

greater the antidote. The more burdensome 
and audacious the evil becomes, the more in- 
dignant and emphatic is the protest which the 
soul makes against it. The outraged moral 
nature of man is the tireless enemy which 
a giant wrong must ever confront, and from 
which it is never safe. The indignation of all 
honest men against a great crime soon finds 
stern expression, and, in the case of slavery, 
it found such expression through the early 
abolitionists. These men were just as really 
raised up of God to commence the attack upon 
slavery, as was Moses to lead his people out of 
Egypt, as was Paul to carry the Gospel to the 
Gentiles, as was Luther to lead the Reformation 
in Germany, or Knox to lead it in Scotland. 
They were a noble company. If we find in 
them, with many things to commend, some 
things to condemn; if they committed blun- 
ders as well as achieved successes — it will only 
show us that they were human, and very much 
like other bodies of reformers who have ap- 
peared in successive generations. I purpose 
to speak of some of the general qualities, com- 
mendable or otherwise, by which these men 
were characterized, and then to give you my 
personal recollections of some of them. 
Among our British ancestors, it was a custom 



S LECTURES AND ESSA VS. 

that when a hero died, each member of the tribe 
brought a stone to the cairn that was to per- 
petuate his memory. We must each do our 
part- however humble, in the making of history. 
I. It would seem hardly necessary to say 
that the early abolitionists were men of deep 
earnestness. Indeed but for this quality there 
could not have been any early abolifionists. 
In them it was singularly strong and pure, and 
I well remember the fascination which it ex- 
erted upon the minds of many young men. 
The first thing which struck your attention, 
when you met them, was their honest and ter- 
rible indignation against slavery, and their un- 
flagging purpose to use all means at command 
to accomplish its extinction. Nobody ever 
questioned their sincerity. They might be 
called "fanatics," "insane," "fools," "nuisances," 
but they were never suspected of any indirect 
motive — political, pecuniary, or social. Such a 
suspicion, under the circumstances, would have 
been absurd. It should be added that this 
earnestness had to a large extent, though I 
am sorry to say not always, the dignity and 
sweetness of Christian love. The early aboli- 
tionists had nearly all been trained in the 
church. Their idea of God's claims and of 
man's rights had come from their religious faith. 



THE EARL Y ABOLITIONISTS. 9 

Their earnestness was that of prophets and 
apostles. They were not men of personal re- 
sentments. They fought a great crime and not 
individuals, although they doubtless made it 
uncomfortable enough for those who defended 
the crime. They shot their arrows at slavery, 
but the man who stood between it and them 
was likely enough to be hit. Mr. Garrison, 
after slavery was abolished, cordially welcomed 
to cooperation with himself in various reforms, 
all classes of worthy men, including those who 
had been his uncompromising antagonists. Saint 
George had killed the dragon, and the sword 
that had been weighted and sharpened only for 
it, was laid aside. The catholic spirit of his 
later years was often commended. George 
Thompson, when he was about to be discharged 
from prison, after a wearisome confinement of 
five years for the crime of trying to help his 
fellow-men to obtain their freedom — a crime of 
which he was doubtless guilty — sa)s in his 
journal: "For the last time 1 collected the 
lambs and had another prayer- meeting. It 
was a blessed reviving season." These are not 
men of malice; they are men of righteousness 
and love. There were many early abolitionists 
of speech so severe that men thought them bit- 
ter in spirit to whom, as well as to Mr. Garri- 



lo LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

son, the words of Wliittier weie applicable: 

Not for thyself but for the slave 

Thy words of thunder shook the world; 
No selfish griefs or hatred gave 

The strength wherewith thy bolts were hurled. 
From lips that Sinai's trumpet blew 

We heard a tenderer undersong; 
Thy very wrath from pity grew, 

From love of man thy hate of wrong. 

2. The earnestness of the early abolitionists 
was accompain'ed, as we should expect it would 
be, by a gciudne courage. It has been said 
that any average man may be so trained that 
he will stand in the line of battle, and shoot 
and be shot at. But the highest courage re- 
quires in addition to this a cheerful and patient 
perseverance, and this comes only of consecra- 
tion to a cause. Such a courage was that of 
the abolitionists. Most of them felt that it 
was of little cojisequence what happened to 
them so that the great object could be pro- 
moted. Cromwell, writing, after the battle of 
Marston-Moor, to Colonel Walton, says that, as 
young Waltqn, who was the Colonel's son, and 
Cromwell's nephew, lay dying on the battle- 
field from a wound by a cannon shot, he said to 
his uncle that he had a comfort which was 
above his pain, but that one thing lay upon his 
spirit, and that was, that God had not suffered 



THE EARL Y ABOLITIONISTS. 1 1 

him to do any more execution upon His enemies. 
What was life or death in comparison with put- 
ting to flight the enemies of a good cause ! This 
was the spirit of the earl}' abohtionists. Like 
Arthur Tappan, they were willing to endure 
loss of trade, attacks upon their homes, and 
the spoiling of their goods; like Weld and 
Goodell and Gerrit Smith and Phillips and 
Abby Kelley and Douglass and Charles Bur- 
leigh and Dresser, the}' were ready to encoun- 
ter mobs, and face stones and brickbats and 
fouler missiles, and meet blows and other forms 
of personal violence; like Garrison, they were 
prepared to be dragged through the street by 
a frenzied mob, expecting every moment to be 
put to death; like Prudence Crandall, they 
submitted to many ingeniously varied forms of 
annoyance, insult and injury; like Thompson, 
Work, and Burr in Missouri, and the Oberlin 
rescuers here, they cheerfully went to prison 
when they felt it was the Master's will; like 
Torrey, they were content, on the chance of 
saving a fellow-creature, to step down into the 
very throat of the leviathan of slavery and hear 
the iron jaws close forever behind them; like 
Lovejoy, they chose to stand until they were 
shot dead in defense of the liberty of the press. 
Time would fail me to tell of all the faithful 



12 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

men who defied death, went to prison, suffered 
stripes, were hunted by mobs, were betrayed 
by friends, and endured the loss of all things 
because they remembered those in bonds as 
bound with them. In a word, there never was 
any nobler or purer courage than that of many 
of these men. 

3. Again, it is abundantly implied in what 
has been said already, that the early abolition- 
ists were men of self-denial. They could have 
acquired wealth or distinction in the different 
callings and professions, but they cheerfully 
sacrificed all that the world holds dear that they 
might open their mouths for the dumb, and 
plead the cause of the poor and needy. Mr. 
Garrison would, in my judgment, have been a 
more distinguished and influential political ed- 
itor than Horace Greeley. Wendell Phillips, 
as a parliamentary orator, would have had as 
brillian.t a career as Henry Cla\' or the elder 
Pitt, both of wliom, in natural endowments, 
he strongl}' resembled. Charles Burleigh would 
have been at the head of his profession, that of 
the law, in almost any State of the Union. 
Edmund Quincy would, have been as subtle 
and accomplished an essayist as Jeffrey. But 
these men turned their backs on these alluring 
prospects that they might identify themselves 



THE EARLY A B OUT ION IS TS. 1 3 

with the cause of the despised slave. They 
felt that their powers belonged to God and hu- 
manity, and not to themselves. 

4. And here I would speak more fully of 
the intellcctjial foj^ce that characterized these 
abolitionists. Regarded simply from this point 
of view, they were a remarkable company of 
men and women. It may well be doubted 
whether any cause was ever better equipped, as 
regards the intelligence and ability of its advo- 
cates, than the anti-slavery reform. Upon its 
list of prose writers such names as the imperial 
Garrison, the clear and earnest Goodell, the just 
and spirited Birney, Rogers, sententious and 
racy, the candid and statesmanlike Jay, the 
elegant and elevated Channing, the witty and 
pointed Quincy, the capable and effective man- 
aging editors, Oliver Johnson, Joshua Leavitt, 
Sidney Howard Gay, William H. Burleigh 
and Dr. Bailey, the Shakespearian Mrs. Stowe, 
Mrs. Chapman, the biographer of Harriet Mar- 
tineau, and the classical Mrs. Child, of whom 
Lowell said, that though her heart, like the Nile, 
sometimes flooded her brain, it always left the 
region it had invaded the more fruitful. The 
poets of this cause were Whittier, Pierpont, 
and Lowell, with a strong claim to Longfel- 
low. Some of its orators w^ere Phillips, Weld, 



1 4 LEC TURES A ND ESS A VS. 

Stanton, l^radburn, Charles C. Burleigh, Gerrit 
Smith, William Goodell, Cassius Clay, Alvan 
Stewart, Samuel Lewis, Cyrus M. Burleigh, 
Douglass, Kemond, Garnet, Abby Kelley and 
Angelina Grimke — names which even now 
sound in our ears like the blast of a bugle. 
Were it not for a rule, which, in my embarrass- 
ment of riches, I have tried to observe, not to 
introduce into this paper men who were not in 
some sense professional abolitionists, I should 
have been glad to include in the last list the 
names of such Oberlin teachers as Finney, 
Thome, and Hudson. Those of you who re- 
member the thunderstorm of wrath with which 
President Finney sometimes broke forth, for a 
few moments, against slavery; or who heard 
such an address from Professor Thome as that 
on ''Learning and Liberty," or have read his 
description of the midnight scene among the 
colored people of Antigua when emancipation 
took place there; or who were present at any 
public debate where Professor Hudson engaged 
in the work of vivisection upon a pro-slavery 
politician — will appreciate what it cost me not 
to place these names on my roll of anti-slavery 
orators. But for the same rule, which I am in 
so much danger of breaking, I should add to 
this list the names of such men in public life as 



THE EA RL V A B OLIl IGNIS IS. 15 

Sumner, Chase, Giddings,Wade, Hale, and John 
Quincy Adams. It is but justice to a people 
still suffering from the effects of unchristian 
prejudice, to add that in the great anti-slavery 
conventions the colored orators I have named, 
and some others, took their full share of the 
work, and appeared to no disadvantage in com- 
parison with the speakers of another race. 

But the early abolitionists made mistakes, 
and had marked faults, and our attention will 
now be directed to some of these. It should 
be remembered, however, that these faults did 
not belong to the whole body of earnest aboli- 
tionists, perhaps not even to a majority of 
them. They did not exist in all of even the 
early abolitionists, but were perhaps sufficiently 
prevalent among them, especially among their 
leaders, to be somewhat characteristic. It may 
be further added, in the way of apology for 
these faults, that you will discover in them a 
family resemblance to the faults of all sturdy 
and aggressive reformers, which suggests the 
possibility of a common explanation of them 
all. It would, no doubt, be an excellent thing, 
if, when you have a tough piece of reformatory 
work to do, you could find a set of men with 
all possible qualifications for it, both positive 
and negative, and without any defects whatever. 



1 6 LECTURES AND ESSAYS, 

But there may be some insuperable difficulty in 
the way of this. It may be, with the limita- 
tions upon our human nature, that when \ou 
have found men with the pluck, I may say 
the audacity, with the earnestness, with the ab- 
solute consecration to the work, witli the stal- 
wart force, with the strength of muscle and the 
weight of blow which the cause demands, this 
will turn out to be about all that they can fur- 
nish, and they will naturally be found to be 
somewhat deficient in the graces, the courtesies, 
the amenities, the sweetness, even the char- 
ities that we so much love. Nevertheless, de- 
fects or no defects, we must have these men. 
When fortresses, that have grown hoary in 
sheltering oppression, are to be torn down — 
when the light of day is to be let in on the dun- 
geons of some Bastile, we must have men, first 
of all, who can poise and hurl battering-rams — 
who can plant explosives, who can wield battle- 
axes and smite with claymores; and if we find 
them deficient in the gentler qualities, or even, 
at times, in candor and fairness, we must look 
with some indulgence upon these defects, for 
the sake of the valor and the force which they 
bring to the aid of a good cause. I am in- 
debted to President Fairchild for the defense 
made by an anti-slavery editor for harshness in 



THE EARLY ABOLITIONISTS. 17 

his methods: " I have a rough road to travel," 
he said, "and silk slippers wouldn't last me an 
hour." Who would blot from the page of his- 
tory the influence of Martin Luther? and yet 
even that revered reformer is not heated much 
beyond his wont in controversy, when he 
shouts to some monkish antagonist, "I will 
break in pieces your heart of brass, and pulverize 
your iron brains." With the charitable con- 
sideration which this view of the case naturally 
begets, we will now discuss the faults of the 
early abolitionists. 

I. In the first place, then, many of them 
had a defective philosophy of morals. They 
were honest to the core. Their sympathies 
were sound and manly. They loved righteous- 
ness and hated iniquity. But when they un- 
dertook to give us definitions, they threw us in- 
to confusion. They judged moral character 
by mechanical rules, and definitions derived 
from men's external acts and relations. For 
example, the holding of a slave is, in all possi- 
ble circumstances — in its very nature — sinful. 
Did not John Wesley say that American slavery 
is the sum of all villainies.? Did not Thomas 
Jefferson write that he trembled for his coun- 
try when he remembered that God is just.? 
Hence, to continue one hour voluntarily in the 



i8 LECTURES AND ESSA VS. 

relation of slaveholder, is in itself a deadly sin. 
Is it not so? Nay, more, is it not self-evident- 
ly so ? This being the case, is not the man 
who apologizes for the slaveholder, though 
not himself one, plainly, and of necessity a sin- 
ner? If this be true, then the apologist for this 
man is also wicked, and so on, indefinitely. 
Let us dwell a moment upon this. A is a 
slaveholder, and therefore a criminal. B knows 
this, but apologizes for A; therefore B is a 
criminal. C admits that A is morally de- 
praved, but thinks that B may be an honest 
man. As this is plainly wrong, C also is a sin- 
ner. Now comes D who condemns A and B, 
but as C is his neighbor, and he approves what 
he has seen of his spirit, he thinks that C may 
be upright. Now we must condemn D; and 
this process goes on to the end of the alphabet. 
So reasoned many of the early abolitionists. 
Of course this alphabet included all the world 
but themselves. Nay more, if one of them- 
selves, in a moment of weakness, ventured to 
suggest that some man in the neighborhood 
of S or T might be virtuous, he was denounced 
and virtually excommunicated. It used to be 
said that no true abolitionist would think well 
of a man that would think well of a man that 
would think well of a man that would think 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 19 

well of a slaveholder. Now this rule was, 
in some respects, a very convenient one. 
It was simple and easily applied. It saved 
much trouble in thinking and investigating. 
When you met a man you were under no 
necessity of observing his conduct, studying 
his spirit, or listening to the testimony of his 
neighbors. You only needed to know that lie 
stood somewhere in the line from A to Z. But 
while this rule saved time and trouble, it had its 
disadvantages. In the first place, it made the 
righteous too few in number for cheerful labor 
among themselves. It was bad in itself, being 
founded neither in good sense, right leason, nor 
experience. It produced unnecessary friction, 
divided true men, and weakened their power 
for good. There can be no doubt that this 
error did much to retard the success of the 
cause, and success which would have come in 
the best way, by the wide diffusion and candid 
reception of truth. 

2. But I have been anticipating another 
fault of many of these reformers which was that 
of intolerance. They could not bear a difference 
of opinion. It did seem to them so perverse 
and unreasonable that their opinions upon moral 
questions should not at once be accepted by all ! 
This fault was in part intellectual, resulting from 



20 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

that lack of a philosophy of morals of which I 
have spoken, and in part moral, the fruit of 
bitterness which had been produced by the long 
contest. It must be admitted that the early 
abolitionists had much to try their patience. 
When they started out with the inspiration of a 
new cause, they expected large help from the 
political parties and the church. A ^&\y public 
men gave them a little indirect countenance. 
A considerable number of Christian people did 
join them. But the church, as a whole, like the 
parties, stood aloof, honestly in doubt, let us 
hope, as to the wisdom and usefulness of the 
movement. This cold reception was a great 
disappointment to the reformers, and when to 
this was added the social ostracism, the abuse, 
and the cruel persecutions of subsequent years, 
it does not surprise us to find that they became 
harsh and embittered. I put it to your candor, 
whether an abolitionist of the proper tempera- 
ment could be expected to control his feelings 
when one of the most powerful ecclesiastical 
bodies in the country refused to consider his 
petition on the subject of slavery, declined to 
adopt vigorous testimonies against it, repealed 
old testimonies because they were too vigorous, 
and took an apologetic attitude generally 
towards that iniquity, and then proceeded to 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 21 

discuss and condemn tlie sin of dancing and 
the evil of marrying a deceased wife's sister. Is 
it surprising that aboHtionists went about say- 
ing in their bitterness that, according to the 
canons of this church, if you dance with a wo- 
man, or marry a woman who is your sister-in- 
law, you will be under censure, but if you sell a 
woman into perpetual slavery, you will escape 
it? I always thought it a grave error in the 
church to give the new reform so inhospitable 
a reception, and it was wrong in the abolition- 
ists to permit themselves, in consequence of this 
rebuff, to become denunciatory and unchari- 
table. 

In some instances this practice of denuncia- 
tion degenerated into a mere habit of scolding. 
I recall an example of this which had an unex- 
pected result. As it introduces a name even 
more distinguished than that of the principal 
actor, it may be of some interest to you. It 
was probably in the winter of i860, when two 
gentlemen, known as Mr. Cox and Mr. Garfield, 
were, like myself, members of the Ohio Senate, 
that a lady who had been a prominent anti- 
slavery lecturer of an extreme school, came to 
Columbus, as it was understood, to reprove the 
members of the General Assembly, in personal 
interviews, for their shortcominors in the work 



22 LECTURES A ND ESS A YS. 

of reform. She sat with some friends upon 
the floor of tlie Senate, in a part reserved for 
ladies, and sent for Senators, one by one, to 
exhort them. Cox and myself, as I remember, 
had both responded to her summons, had re- 
ceived our reproofs with due meekness, and had 
returned to our seats with something, no doubt, 
of that humbled look which a man always has, 
owing, of course, to his false education, when he 
is put down by a woman. Garfield's turn came 
next. He had a keen relish for fun, and some 
curiosity was expressed to learn the result ot 
the encounter. As he approached our critic, 
and before she could fairly begin, he broke out 
with much emphasis somehow as follows: — 
*'Oh, madam! [ hail this opportunity. I have 
long wished to see you in order to rebuke you ; 
and I do now rebuke you for your horrible trea- 
son to humanity. How can you look us in the 
face, after all the harm you have done to the 
cause of reform } Oh, madam ! I've seen hard- 
hearted people, I've seen cruel people, I've seen 
malicious people — but of all the hard-hearted 
people, all the cruel people, all the malicious 
people that I ever saw, you are the most incor- 
rigible. I denounce you in the name of bleed- 
ing humanity for your abominable course." 
This jocose tirade had the intended effect. The 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 23 

lady felt herself outscolded and declined the con- 
test. Mr. Garfield, like the skillful military 
man which he afterwards showed himself to be, 
drew off his forces without loss. Having given 
this ludicrous incident, it is but justice to add 
that the lady in question was one of the most 
laborious, faithful, and self-denying of the group 
of workers to which she belonged. I knew her 
well, and often heard her. She was a thorough 
student of her subject, and was one of the best 
furnished of all the anti-slavery speakers with 
facts, illustrations, and arguments. Her public 
addresses were often very able, and, in the early 
period, wholly unobjectionable. But as the 
years passed, she became impatient with the 
slow progress which the world was making. 
She felt that the case had been made so plain 
that farther argument was a waste of strength, 
and the time had come for denunciation and 
the application of the severest epithets. Hence- 
forth her speeches were composed largely, and 
I have no doubt conscientiously, of material of 
this kind. 

3. I must speak of one more fault of a por- 
tion of the early anti-slavery men', and one 
which was a great obstacle to their success. 
' They were protie to attack the wrong thing. 
When they assaulted slavery, or those who 



24 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

upheld slavery, they were in their legitimate 
sphere, and commended themselves strongly to 
men's conscience and judgment. But they 
could not limit themselves to this. For exam- 
ple, in discussing national questions, they be- 
gan by showing that the government of the 
United States, although founded, at great cost, 
for the establishment of liberty, had been ad- 
ministered in the interest of slavery. They 
turned a strong light upon all the dark places 
of our history, exposing the malign schemes 
by which slaveholders and their allies, for thir- 
ty years, had managed to subordinate the wel- 
fare of the whole people to the aggrandizement 
of a despotic oligarchy. This was excellent 
and wholesome work, and it secured for them a 
multitude of sympathizers. But this policy in 
time lost its interest for tiiem, as being too ele- 
mentary and common-place. It was time for ad- 
vanced opinions. Hence they announced the 
doctrine that the Constitution, which all the great 
jurists are now agreed is a law, and is to be inter- 
preted as such, was a mere treaty between inde- 
pendent States, and as they thought there were 
some things in it favorable to slavery, they de- 
manded its abrogation, or became disunionists. 
By this step alone they lost a large portion of 
their followers. But a few of them went still 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 25 

furtlier. Believine^ tliat all reform inust make 
progress, they next took the ground that hu- 
man government is in its nature oppressive — 
that its use of force is brutal and unphilosoph- 
ical — that the restraints which it imposes upon 
the mind, cripple and dwarf it, and fit it for the 
advocacy of slavery — that all government by 
force is, in its nature, pro-slavery. A similar 
course was pursued in regard to the church. 
The first abolitionists attacked the pro-slavery 
action of the churches, and criticised their luke- 
warmness and indifference. They placed the 
noble — the divine — ideal of self-denial and 
Christian philanthropy which the New Testa- 
ment gives us, both in doctrine and exam- 
ple, side by side with the very imperfect 
illustrations of it which the church furnished 
in the body of her communicants. But that 
was a good and useful and Christian thing to 
do. It awakened in the churches a godly 
jealousy that did them good like a medicine. 
Hut a few of the reformers tired of this policy 
as being loo slow, and fell to studying church 
organization. They were soon able to an- 
nounce the discovery that this, even in its simpler 
forms, was oppressive to the membership, and 
thus, in spirit, pro-slavery. Tliey then com- 
menced, in the name of liberty, an attack upon 



26 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

the church itself. I attended an anti-slavery 
meeting in Boston in which at least one speak- 
er avowed the doctrine that slavery could not 
be abolished until the church had been de- 
stroyed. I well remember the reply of Wen- 
dell Phillips to this speech. He spoke of the 
absurdity of the position viewed merely as a 
matter of policy. He said: "It is as if I were 
driving upon the highway in the White Moun- 
tains and found the road obstructed by a rock 
that had fallen upon it from the heights, and 
instead of getting men and crowbars to roll it 
over the precipice out of my way, i should in- 
sist upon sitting stock-still until I had invented 
some universal solvent that would melt all the 
granite of New England, or rather of the whole 
globe that we inhabit. In my judgment that 
would be a slow way to reach the end of the 
journe}', to say nothing of the question whether 
we can afford to lose the granite." 

I am glad to repeat that these extreme views 
in regard to the government and the church, 
were adopted by only a minority of the early 
abolitionists, although in this minority were 
found the names of persons of wide influence. 

Some personal recollections of the early ab- 
olitionists will form the subject of a future 
lecture. 



THE EARLY ABOLITIONISTS. ' 

II. 

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

A TPIURSDAY LECTURE. 

An introductory address, delivered a few 
months since., has prepared the way for giving 
you my recollections of some leaders among 
the early abolitionists. You will pardon so 
much of personal history as may be necessary 
to justify my undertaking to speak, in some 
measure, for these men. As early as the year 
1840, I occasionally addressed temperance and 
anti-slavery meetings. From October 10, 1841, 
until February, 1844 — ^ ^t;w weeks before I 
came to Oberlin to enter college — I was con- 
stantly employed in the service of the American 
Anti-Slavery Society, or some other organiza- 
tion of like character. The first certificate of 
official appointment which I find among my 
papers, is dated at "New York, First Month, 
5th, 1842," and is signed by James S. Gibbons, 
Chairman, and Isaac T. Hopper, Treasurer of 



28 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

the American Anti-Slavery Society. During 
the nearly two and a third years in vvliich I 
was engaged in anti-slavery work, I must have 
delivered several hundred addresses. While I 
cannot accuse myself of any want of earnestness 
and sincerity in these labors, I cannot, in can- 
dor, claim for them any high degree of effective- 
ness in the advancement of the cause. There 
must have been much that was crude in thought, 
unsound in philosophy, and ill-advised in judg- 
ment in the utterance of an uneducated and in- 
experienced youth of twenty. But while it must 
be admitted that the service which I rendered 
was not very valuable, it is some relief to remem- 
ber that the compensation which I received for 
it was not excessive. I was comfortably fed and 
decently clothed during the whole period, and 
reached Oberlin, soon after its close, with a net 
sum of seventy-five dollars in gold in my pocket. 
Let me gratefully add that I found in the anti- 
slavery field some advantages more important 
than money. I was at the age when the pow- 
ers of observation are quickest and most vigor- 
ous, and when the eye and ear are never tired ' 
of taking in what man and nature offer them. 
I was enabled to see something of my own 
country in different States, and to observe differ- 
ent phases of American society. The excitement 



THE EARLY ABOLI TIONIS TS. 29 

upon the question of slavery commonly 
made my audiences large and interesting, and 
if they occasionally furnished a man who threw 
missiles at my head, it is only fair to remember 
that they had to listen to my speeches. It was 
my privilege frequently to see and hear eminent 
men among the early abolitionists, and to have 
some acquaintance with them. My personal 
recollections of them and of their surroundings 
are very vivid, and the humble part which I 
bore among them fitted me, I trust, in some de- 
gree, for the duty I have assumed to-day. 

My recollections of these pioneers of reform, 
in one instance, go much further back than the 
time I have spoken of. It was in the autumn 
of 182S, that a man came to the door of our 
farmhouse in Connecticut, and, in the gentlest 
tones, invited my mother to aid him in some 
work in which, as it seemed to me, who was a 
witness of the interview, he felt a deep interest. 
The picture which has remained impressed upon 
my mind is that of a slight man, having the ap- 
pearance of an invalid, with a face that looked 
weary, sad, and earnest. The appeal to my 
boyish sympathies was strengthened by his lift- 
ing his hand to his ear and asking my mother 
to speak distinctly as he was partially deaf. I 
suffered a childish disappointment when my 



30 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

mother told him tliat she was not prepared to 
render him any assistance. So much I dis- 
tinctly remember as having happened at the 
time. I afterwards came to know that this man 
was Benjamin Lundy, the Quaker philanthro- 
pist, and that he had asked my mother that day 
to subscribe for his paper, the "Genius of Uni- 
versal h.mancipation." I think we all felt later 
a sympathetic regret at having failed to help a 
good man in a cause that would have brought 
a blessing. Mr. Lundy was the first man who 
dared to attack slavery after its growing profit- 
ableness had firmly established it in the popu- 
lar favor. He was not a great man intellectu- 
ally, and did not see his way clear as to princi- 
ples and measures. But he was one of the 
truest, gentlest, bravest, most unselfish, forgiv- 
ing, and patient souls that ever lived. For the 
sake of the slave, he bore endless hardship, 
poverty and persecution without one complaint. 
To me he seems a rare spirit — a constant suf- 
ferer for Christ who talks only of mercies and 
blessings experienced — a man in daily battle 
with evil who is charitable to the authors of it 
— a reformer who often attributes his want ot 
success to his own deficiencies. In the autumn 
of 1828 and 1829, he traveled, mostly on foot, 
with a heavy knapsack on his back, through the 



THE EARLY ABOLITIONISTS. 31 

Eastern States, deliverin^r lectures, soliciting sub- 
sci-iptions for iiis journal, and visiting clergymen 
and other leaders of public opinion. In Boston, 
lie tells us, he found "the very winter of phil- 
anthropy." But there was already a promise 
of spring. At his boarding-house, he found a 
young man by the name of Garrison, who ex- 
pressed hearty sympathy with his object. " It 
1 mistake not," he says, "this young man will 
yet be heard from." Mr. Garrison's own ac- 
knowledgment of his indebtedness to Mr. 
Lundy refers to this period, and is equally cred- 
itable to both. "If I have, in any way, how- 
ever humble," he says, "done anything toward 
calh'ng attention to slavery, or bringing about 
the glorious prospect of a complete jubilee in 
our country at no distant day, I feel that I owe 
everythirig in this matter, instrumentally, and 
under God, to Benjamin Lundy." 

When we reach the name of Mr. Garrison, 
we find the true originator of the modern anti- 
slavery movement. I know that his claim to 
tin's merit has been contested ; but the dreary, 
special pleading in which it is done reminds us 
of the attempt to prove that Columbus was not 
the real discoverer of America — that Luther did 
not give us the Reformation — that the dramas 
of Shakespeare were written by Bacon — and 



32 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

that Newton was not the discoverer of the uni- 
versal gravitation of matter. Mr. Garrison was, 
no doubt, the first man, in tlie recent period, who 
announced the doctrine of immediate emanci- 
pation. But it is more that his clarion voice 
first commanded general attention. He pricked 
the conscience, awakened the intellect, and 
stirred the sensibilities of the nation. He made 
slavery a subject ofdiscussion in every town and 
by every fireside. His powers were most ef- 
fectively exerted through his writings ; but he 
v^^as a remarkable speaker, and would have been 
thought still more remarkable but for his bril- 
liant success with the pen. In speaking, his 
style was terse, clear, and vigorous, and ani- 
mated throughout by intense earnestness. His 
clear-cut sentences had each great completeness 
in themselves, so that they produced the effect 
of aphorisms. As they fell from his lips, they 
reminded the hearer of the dropping of sover- 
eigns upon a counter — so solid, so perfect, so 
plainly stamped, and often so beautiful they 
seemed. When at his best he spoke with a 
weight of authority that produced a certain awe 
in the hearer, recalling the Athenian orator's 
definition of eloquence — SetwVr;?, terribleness. 
He had a prophet-like solemnity, as of one 
who had been sent to call men to account for 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 33 

their sins — to denounce judgments upon op- 
pression and disobedience to God. This im- 
pression was heightened by the fervor and apt- 
ness with which he quoted the noblest passages 
from the prophets and the Psahns. I never 
thought of him as an orator, but as one who 
had come to instruct, to warn, and to judge. 
But when heated in debate with a strong man, 
his manner changed, and did not impress me so 
favorably. An element of fierceness was added 
to it. At such times he was a dangerous foe, 
and few who encountered him had reason to con- 
gratulate themselves on the result. He spoke 
as if his opponent were guilty of intolerable 
presumption, and must be promptly suppressed. 
He would neither give nor take quarter. He 
aimed to get within the weapon of his antago- 
nist and to close with him in mortal combat. 

A notable example of this was a debate 
which I heard at a great Reform Convention in 
Boston in February, 1844, between Mr. Garri- 
son and that able, versatile, impulsive, irascible, 
imperious man, Orestes A. Brownson — a de- 
bate which attracted much attention at the 
time, and in which, I must say, Mr. Brownson 
was utterly put down. A somewhat milder but 
still characteristic instance of the same sort 
belongs to a time a few months earlier. An 



34 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

account of this may be of some interest to you 
in itself, but of more interest as an illustration 
of the manner in which the anti-slavery conflict 
was often conducted. On the loth of July,i 843, 
I attended an anti-slavery convention in Spring- 
field, Massachusetts. Mr. Garrison and one 
other speaker were also there. Dr. Osgood, 
the esteemed and already venerable pastor of the 
First Congregational Church in that town, was 
present at the meetings. He had formerly been 
connected with the abolition movement, but, 
disturbed by what he thought to be some of its 
tendencies, he had withdrawn from it. He and 
Mr. Garrison seemed each, I thought, to recog- 
nize an adversary in the other from the begin- 
ning. They soon fell into debate. Mr. Garri- 
son said that the Congregational churches of 
New England were in sympathy with the slave- 
holding churches of the South, and were re- 
sponsible for the crime of slavery. Dr. Osgood 
replied that this charge was false, for the 
churches of New England had no ecclesiastical 
connection with Southern churches. Thereup-^ 
on Mr. Garrison kindled, and grew intense, te- 
nacious, and incisive. Of course, I cannot re- 
produce his words with the exception of a few 
phrases that burnt into my memory ; but the 
principal points of his argument, so strong was 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 35 

the impression made upon me, have never been 
forgotten. Mr. Garrison said in substance that 
he cared but httle about the merely formal re- 
lation between the New England churches and 
those of the South. He wished to know whether 
there was an identity of spirit between them. 
Was the religion of the two sections the 
same.? He then read, probably from the old 
" Boston Recorder," or possibly from the ''Ver- 
mont Chronicle" — both of wh.ich were then or- 
gans of Congregationalism — an editorial con- 
gratulating all Christian readers on a revival of 
religion that had prevailed among Presbyterians 
in one of the Gulf States — perhaps in Missis- 
sippi. It had been a marvelous work of grace; 
the hearts of master and slave had alike been 
touched ; and the good influence had been wide- 
ly felt. Now what was this religion which had 
thus been revived, and over the revival of which 
the Congregationalists of New England so 
much rejoiced. Southern newspapers published 
in the State and even in the neighborhood where 
this revival had occurred, and daily received in 
Boston offices, by way of exchange, contained 
numerous instances of the barbarities practiced 
in that region — advertisements of fugitive slaves 
in which are described, to aid in the identifica- 
tion of their persons, the scarred backs, the 



36 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

maimed feet, the crippled hands, the branded 
bosoms, the slashed faces, the mutilated eyes 
and ears, and all the familiar evidences of the 
state of slavery — advertisements of masters of 
trained bloodhounds which they will let on rea- 
sonable terms to pursue and seize these crip- 
pled and unhappy men and women — advertise- 
ments of slave-auctions where husbands, wives, 
parents and children will be sold separately, or 
in lots, to suit purchasers. What share had 
these owners of mutilated slaves, these masters 
of bloodhounds, these auctioneers of human be- 
ings in this revival? Were they leaders in the 
movement? Were they converted during its 
progress? If so, what evidence had they given 
of penitence for the atrocities they had com- 
mitted? If it should be said, that these classes 
were all outside of this revival work, then it 
might be asked whether there was any man 
of those that were engaged in it, whether there 
was any one of the clergymen who conducted 
it, that would stand up in his place and rebuke 
these outrages upon humanity? Was the Gos- 
pel which these men had preached one that 
could live comfortably and peaceably with such 
atrocities, or one that would condemn and at- 
tack them? Would any one claim that the 
subjects of this revival had even thought of such 



THE EARL Y ABOLITIONISTS. 37 

a thing as a conflict with these giant crinaes? 
And yet, Dr. Osgood and his Congregational 
brethren thanked God for such a revival as this; 
and should there ever be such a thing as a re- 
vival in Dr. Osgood's church, no doubt the Pres- 
byterian slaveholders of Mississippi would thank- 
God for that also. Both these parties had the 
same religion, and that religion was essentially 
pro-slavery. Such was, in substance, Mr. Gar- 
rison's argument. 1 did not then, and do not 
now, think it altogether fair, for it does not 
make sufficient allowance for the influence upon 
judgment and conscience, of remoteness and 
indirectness in human relations. But it carried 
the large audience with it, and it sorely pre- 
plexed good Dr. Osgood, who looked as if he 
were trying to quote something from Dr. Way- 
land's "Limitations of Human Responsibility" 
— a book then fresh in everybody's mind — but 
could not quite remember what it was. 

An incident occurred that day, at the close 
of the session, which T mention, because it was 
a characteristic example of Mr. Garrison's 
frankness. Dr Osgood, approaching the part 
of the hall where Mr. Garrison and myself were 
standing together, without seeming to observe 
him, said to me, with a motive which I did not 
fail to appreciate, "You showed good sense in 



38 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

your speech. You had argument and candor." 
As soon as Mr. Garrison and I were by our- 
selves, he said: **Be not seduced by this smooth- 
tongued man. He complimented your speech, 
not because he thought it so good an effort, 
but because he wished to disparage those of us 
who had dealt with him more thoroughly." I 
think you will agree with me that, if I had been 
in any danger of being spoiled by Dr. Osgood's 
praise, this would have been a sufficient anti- 
dote. 

I must not leave the impression that the 
early abolitionists always came off as well as 
on this occasion in their encounters with doc- 
tors of divinity. Of the old-fashioned divines 
who still lingered in the New England parishes, 
in my boyhood, there were some who, well-in- 
formed, shrewd, wary, and full of mother wit, were 
a match for any lecturer who might come into 
their neighborhood. As my own experience 
furnishes an instance of discomfiture from 
such a source, it is, perhaps, only reasonable 
that I should give you this rather than make 
an example of another man. It was probably in 
November, 1841, that I had an appointment to 
speak in Thompson, Connecticut. The meeting 
was to be held in the Congregational Church 
where the venerable Dr. Dow had ministered 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 39 

for many years. When I reached the house, 
Dr. Dow was there, and he sat with me in the 
pulpit. I remember nothing unusual in my 
address. It is presumable that I spoke of the 
evil of slavery, of our political, ecclesiastical, 
commercial, and social complicity with it, and 
of the duty of all Northern men — and of the 
citizens of Thompson in particular — to unite 
in resisting its encroachments and thus prepar- 
ing the way for its abolition. When I sat 
down, Dr. Dow rose. I wish I could give you 
his dry, solemn, half-paternal manner. He 
said, in substance, "I have listened attentively 
to the young man's speech. His zeal is com- 
mendable, but the appeal which he made seems 
hardly pertinent to this locality. I might con- 
vey my idea to you by an illustration. Let 
us suppose that I am asleep in my bed in the 
middle of the night. I am awakened by a 
clamor and a knocking at my window. I spring 
to my feet, and ask, what is the matter. I 
recognize the voice of this young gentleman in 
response, ' Dr. Dow, there is a fire. Fire ! fire ! ' 
'Young man,' I ask, 'is the fire on this street.'* ' 
'No! fire! fire!' 'Is the fire anywhere on 
Thompson hill.?' ' No ! fire! fire! ' 'Well, is the 
fire in the State of Connecticut .'' ' 'No! fire! 
fire!' Growing impatient, I exclaim, 'Well, 



40 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

young man, where is the fire?' At last the 
answer comes, 'Why, Dr. Dow, the fire is in 
Lou-is-i-a-ny ! ' " As the Doctor concluded, 
the old church rang with peals of laughter. I 
thought they would never stop laughing. Ot 
course, I tried to recover myself. I said, "Let 
us carry the supposition a little further. Sup- 
pose that instead of a single fire in Louisiana 
there was a system of fires. Suppose a system 
of arson was practiced throughout the South- 
ern States. Suppose we were, in part, respon- 
sible for it, and our money and influence had 
contributed to it. Nay, more, suppose an at- 
tempt were made to extend this curse into the 
North — into Connecticut. Would Dr. Dow, 
would any man, have a right to complain if he 
were entreated to join in an effort to arrest its 
progress.-* Should he not rather be thankful if 
he were called upon, at any hour of the day or 
night, and warned of the coming danger.? " This 
1 said, and doubtless much more. It was all 
in vain. I could not even get a hearing. I 
was laughed at as each successive sentence was 
delivered. The whole question was considered 
too ridiculous for serious thought. The meet- 
ing closed with much merry feeling in all hearts 
but one. 

But it is time to ask your attention to another 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 41 

name among the early abolitionists. The 
prince of all anti-slavery orators — I had almost 
said, the prince of all the orators I have ever 
known — was Wendell PhilHps. His natural 
graces and endowments, his fine culture and 
many acquisitions, and the elevated moral 
purpose which wiekied these simply as means 
to noble ends — all contributed to his matchless 
eloquence. His handsome person, his finely 
chiselled, classical features, his expressive face, 
his graceful action, his gesture that sent the 
thought home, his musical and magnetic voice, 
his simple, natural, and charming elocution, his 
unlimited command of pure f'^nglish, and his 
quickness in choosing instantly the best 
word for his object — a word that came 
hot to his lips, the elevated thought and 
the fine contagious enthusiasm tluit stirred 
his whole being — these were some of the 
elements of that power that kept great au- 
diences hanging on his lips with no sense 
of the lapse of time. His earnestness was 
a sustained glow, like that of molten metal, 
with an occasional flash that went through you 
like an electric shock. His humor played for a 
moment like heat lightning on a summer cloud, 
and then struck, and burnt. Mr. Phillips was 
never described by the reporters and reviewers 



42 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

as being a logical speaker. I do not remennber 
to have seen the familiar epithet " argumenta- 
tive" applied to his efforts, and do not suppose 
they suggested it. He was impatient of the slow, 
syllogistic processes. Such terms as "major 
premise," "minor premise," "a priori," "a pos- 
teriori " — I might almost add "therefore" and 
"consequently" — he never used. What he saw 
and felt he was very apt to take for granted. 
"Heat, not light," he said, "was what men 
wanted." And yet he always carried the un- 
derstanding of his hearers as truly as he stirred 
their emotions. As you listened to him you 
felt no want of truth or soundness in his dis- 
course. His speeches were a succession of 
propositions that appeared so nearly self-evident 
that you were only too glad to accept them and 
move on to the coming triumph. His power of 
statement was wonderful. He saw so clearly 
and felt so strongly, this could not be other- 
wise. His simple sentences gave you so vivid 
a picture of his thought, that you recognized it 
as something which you already knew, and with 
which you certainly could sympathize. It was 
interesting to compare his mental processes 
with those of orators who were able indeed 
but who delighted in the slower methods of rea- 
soning in detail. They reminded me of men 



THE EARL Y ABOLITIONISTS. 43 

who climb some Alpine peak by slow and toil- 
some means, lifting themselves painfully from 
point to point and from crevice to crevice, drag- 
ging after them the surveyor's chain, keeping 
record of altitudes, temperature, and atmos- 
pheric density, and at last achieving success. 
But Phillips seemed like one who, glancing up- 
ward for a moment to fix his course, unfolds 
the wings of his genius, and lights on the 
heights from above. The man of routine may 
say that he has reached it by irregular methods, 
but cannot deny that he is there. 

The newspapers used to speak of the patri- 
cian bearing of Mr. Phillips. If he had such 
bearing, it was most natural and unpretending. 
No doubt, he stood upon the platform like a 
cultivated, self-respecting, Christian gentleman. 
At one time the fashionable people of Bos- 
ton undertook to stigmatize abolitionism as 
vulgar. But it was not possible for all 
Boston to make abolitionism vulgar so long 
as Wendell Phillips advocated it. His 
blood was as blue as any that ran in Massa- 
chusetts veins, and it was not easy for the sons 
and daughters of men who had sold codfish and 
molasses within his memory, to look down, 
upon him. The young men of Boston who 
listened to Mr. Phillips felt that, if they took 



44 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

sides with him, they would be keeping as good 
company as Boston could furnish, and his elo- 
quence drew many of them to the anti-slavery 
organization. 

It has been said that Mr. Phillips, as the 
years advanced with him, lost something of his 
old fire. I know not how this may have been, 
but it is probably true that his best efforts 
were made in the height of the early anti-sla- 
very inovement, when he was in the prime of 
his powers, and when passing events made the 
strongest appeal to a nature so generous as his. 
Unfortunately these speeches were not properly 
reported. The volume of his published lectures 
contains nothing between 1837 and 1851. In 
a letter received not long before his death, in 
reply to one of inquiry from me, he says that 
liis anti-slavery addresses of this early time are 
nowhere to be found except in such brief re- 
ports as were contained in the newspapers of 
the day, and that, believing the interest in them 
died with the occasion, he had never tried to 
recover them. I deeply regret this. It has 
always appeared to me that there never could 
have been any better platform oratory of the 
higher order than were these speeches. If elo- 
quence means the power to capture immense 
assemblies of the people of various opinions 



THE EARL V ylBOLITIONISTS. 45 

and prejudices, and hold tliem, as one man, in 
sympathy with the speaker, then these speeches 
were eloquent. 

I heard Mr. Phillips many times and always 
with profit and delight. Of one of these occa- 
sions, in such imperfect manner as is now pos- 
sible to me, I must try to give you some ac- 
count. Although I cannot reproduce, with 
verbal accuracy, a single sentence that was ut- 
tered in this address, and have only the vaguest 
remembrance of the course of thought, yet so 
vivid is the impression that it left upon my 
mind that I cannot believe I am quite the same 
man I should have been, had I never heard it. 
This speech must, I think, have been made at 
one of the conventions of the New England An- 
ti-Slavery Society. It was delivered to an 
immense popular assembly at an evening meet- 
ing in Fanueil Hall. For some reason which I 
do not now distinctly remember, there was 
great political excitement in connection with 
this meeting. It was attended by a large body 
of ''roughs" from certain wards in the city of 
Boston, who came, apparently instructed by 
their leaders, to dispute everything and to be 
generally disorderly and violent. They stood 
compactly together in one part of the hall, and 
were from the beginning defiant and noisy. 



46 . LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

Early in the evening the impression on the 
platform was that no speaker could gain a hear- 
ing in an assembly so turbulent, and that it 
would soon break up in a dangerous riot. At 
length, however, the meeting was supposed to 
be organized, and an attempt was made to 
carry out the programme of the evening; but 
one speaker after another who began to ad- 
dress the audience, was silenced by a storm of 
yells, groans, and hisses. A distinguished col- 
ored man was then put forward in the hope 
that the mob might feel an interest in listening 
to him, but the bellowing of the thousand- 
headed monster was only redoubled. It was 
said upon the platform that Mr. Phillips must 
next try the experiment, and he promptly re- 
sponded. Stepping swiftly and lightly to the 
front, he made a slight deprecatory gesture as 
if he had a suggestion to present, or a word of 
explanation to offer, or possibly a compromise 
to propose. As he began, it was evident that 
he had caught the attention of the multitude. 
In thinking of it now, I am reminded of the 
great silence v/hich Paul made by beckoning 
with his hand. When Mr. Phillips had spoken 
for two or three minutes, in the spirit of what 
Cicero would call the conciliation the monster 
toward the rear of the hall grew restless and 



THE EARL Y ABOLITIONISTS. ^^ 

threatened another outbreak; but, Hftinj^ his 
finger, as if he would say "just a word more," 
he proceeded. In a {^sn moments it was plain 
that the turbulent spirits were falling under his 
control. Bucephalus had been mounted by his 
master. Soon we were all alike hurried along 
by the torrent of his discourse. The glowing 
eye, the sweet, sympathetic, half-tremulous 
voice, the action at once persuasive and forci- 
ble, the form that seemed to dilate with the 
rising enthusiasm, the body over which spiritu- 
al feeling seemed so to dominate that you lost 
the sense of a corporeal presence — these all 
now exercised their charm upon men of every 
class and every grade of culture. I can give 
but little account of what was said during the 
hour that followed. I only know that there 
was humor, pathos, terse statement, earnest 
appeal, elevated sentiment, and manly reproof. 
There was, of course, the metaphor that was 
both a picture and an argument; the single 
word that raised a blister on the thick skin of 
hunkerism; the spark of wit that looked inno- 
cent but was dangerous; the flash of light that 
revealed, for a moment, even to those who 
would not see, all the creeping things that hide 
in the recesses of a vulgar, selfish, prejudiced 
heart; the call to the dead moral nature of man 



48 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

that woke it to conscious life and terror; and, 
towards the close, there vv^as the divine frenzy 
which perv^aded all these and made them irre- 
sistible. The mob continued to be charmed 
auditors to the end. They permitted him, 
without interruption, to say to them, and of 
them, and of their masters what he saw fit, and 
when he concluded, and the immense assembly, 
after taking a moment to bethink itself, joined 
in a grand outburst of applause, many of the 
mob appeared to applaud with the rest. It 
was a great triumph and it was eloquence, if 
there ever was any. 

One of the ablest, most laborious, and 
and most useful of the early anti-slavery 
workers was Charles C. Burleigh. He came 
of a remarkable family, and w^as himself 
the most remarkable member of it. I knew 
him almost from 'boyhood, and have always re- 
garded him as an excellent example of the 
earnest, brave, hard-working, upright, and un- 
selfish reformer. He showed great ability in 
whatever way he labored, whether as editor, 
lecturer, or financial agent; but his chief merit 
was, no doubt, that of a speaker. He must 
have delivered thousands of public addresses, in 
many different States, during his long service in 
the anti-slavery cause. His ordinary speeches, 



THE EARL 3 ' ABOLITIONISTS. 49 

given from town to town, were never poor. They 
were clear, instructive, and often very interest- 
ing; but it detracted much from their effective- 
ness that he had a curious fanc>' for spending 
the first half of his hour in an elaborate effort 
to prove self-evident truths — or truths, at least, 
which his audience were all prepared to admit. 
His friends spoke frankly to him of this habit, 
but he could not be broken of it. He had the 
feeling that he must go back to the beginning, 
and get a good start. During the last half of 
his addresses, he would become roused and 
hold the fixed attention of his hearers. But 
those who would know what Charles Burleigh 
was must have heard him in debate with a man 
whose powers were fairly matched with his own. 
He was, I think, the greatest debater that the 
anti-slavery movement produced. Opposition 
made him a new man. No matter how dull a 
speech he might be making, let but some one 
rise in the assembly — some lawyer of eminence, 
some distinguished clergyman — and ask him a 
few well-put questions, and there was an instant 
change. Power, from somewhere within, came 
into the eyes and into the face. The leonine 
head, with its ample environment of auburn 
hair, then looked defiant and terrible like an 
antique bust of some old Roman, great in war 



50 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

or in the councils of the State. In such conflicts, 
or in more formal ones, all that he had ever 
known seemed available, and his disciplined 
powers were at their best, and were all at com- 
mand. He not only refuted all hostile objec- 
tions, but put his antagonist on the defensive, 
and commonly so utterly vanquished him that 
the audience, whatever its prejudices might 
have been, would concede the victory to Mr. 
Burleigh. His replies to opponents, struck out 
in the heat of debate, were often very noble. 
Some of these it was my privilege to hear. Of 
another, which I believe has never appeared in 
print, I must give you an account which I re- 
ceived from a friend. It was, perhaps, in the 
year 1839, tHat Charles Burleigh, by previous 
arrangement of the frien(^s of the parties, had a 
debate, in some town in Southern-Pennsylvania, 
with a gentleman of character and ability, who, 
if I remember correctly, was a Dr. Smucher, of 
the Lutheran College in Gettysburg. This de- 
bate lasted a couple of days, and was a famous 
event in its time. As it was held near the 
Maryland line, the duties of citizens under the 
old Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 were naturally a 
prominent subject of discussion. Dr. Smucfcer, .^ 
in support of his conservative opinions, quoted, 
unfortunately as it would now seem, the text 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 5 1 

•* Render unto C^sar the things that are 
Caesar's." Mr. Burleigli promptly replied: — 
•'I, too, would render unto Ca.^sar the things 
that are Caesar's; but the learned doctor seems 
to have forgotten the circumstances under which 
these words of our Lord were spoken. The 
Pharisees asked him, ' Is it lawful to give tribute 
to Ca?sar, or not.^^' But he said unto them, 
'Bring me a" penny that I may see it.' And 
they brought it. And he saith unto them, 
'Whose image and superscription hath \lV 
They say unto him Caesar's. Then saith he 
unto them, 'Render therefore unto Ca?sar the 
the things which be Caesar's and unto God the 
things which be God's.' So would I say in re- 
gard to the fugitive slave, 'Whose image and 
superscription hath he } ' ' And God said, Let us 
make man in our image, after our likeness ; and 
let them have dominion over the fish of the 
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the 
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every 
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 
So God created man in his own image, in the 
image of God created he him.' Render there- 
fore unto God the things which be God's." 

The great humorist of the early anti-slavery 
speakers was Alvan Stewart, of Utica, New 
York. As I remember him, he was, I should 



52 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

say, more than six feet in height, with propor- 
tions otherwise suitable — a large-headed, broad- 
shouldered, big-bodied man. His ample face 
was, when in repose, one of the most solemn 
and melancholy that I ever saw, and it did not 
depart much from this type when he was utter, 
ing witticisms that convulsed everybody else 
with laughter. At a meeting of the Connecti- 
cut Anti-Slavery Society held at New Haven in 
the summer of 1842, I heard a speech from 
him which his friends told me was a fair ex- 
pression of his peculiar powers. The circum- 
stances were these : — Gerrit Smith had pub- 
lished an address to the slaves of the South in 
which he had said to them that if they should 
run awa}' from their masters, and in their at- 
tempts to reach the North, should find a boat, 
or a horse, or any other means of locomotion 
necessary to their escape, they would be wholly 
justified in taking it. This course of Mr. Smith 
wounded the moral sense of the " New York Ob- 
server." That religious journal had been able, 
for many years, to bear, with an equanimity 
approaching complacency, all the horrors and 
atrocities of slavery; but here was something 
which no pious soul could endure, and the " Ob- 
server," at last, found something to reprove. 
It was generally understood, though I do not 



THE EA RL Y ABOLITIONISTS. 53 

remember that T had personal knowledge 
of the fact, that it had published a leader 
severely attacking Mr. Smith, headed by 
the very proper question, ''Is it right to 
steal ^" These facts were the basis of Mr. 
Stewart's speech on the occasion to which 
I have referred. You can imagine what an 
opportunity they offered to a man in whom 
the feelings and the language of humorous sar- 
casm commanded a scale of range so wide as 
was hardly witnessed in any other man of his 
generation. The convention set apart an even- 
ing for a speech from Mr. Stewart. The house 
was packed. After some preliminary exercises 
the imposing form of the distinguished Utica 
lawyer was seen steering into place in front ot 
the assembly like a seventy-four gun ship. He 
took his attitude, and settled his countenance. 
The audience cheered him merely for the face 
which he made. But he was not yet ready to 
proceed. His great frame was trembling with 
some internal commotion. Some profound 
thought was struggling for utterance. At 
length, when expectation was at its height, he 
found a voice. He asked us in a tone of sanc- 
timonious melancholy which was inimitable, 
whether we thought it right to steal. This was 
greeted with a burst of laughter, and from that 



54 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

time, for more than an hour, he kept the audi- 
ence in a state of rapturous delight. Every 
few moments, after completing some climax of 
merriment, he would again inquire in a tone of 
hurt moral feeling, "Is it right to steal?" The 
palpable and ludicrous inconsistency of the 
" Observer" was, of course, the inspiration of the 
speech. Men gave way to a perfect abandon 
of laughter. They laughed, they cried, they 
applauded. But through all the uproar of ap- 
plause, as well as through the moments of 
comparative quiet, was heard the \'oice of the 
speaker remonstrating in tones of plaintive 
sanctity against the wickedness of stealing — 
especially such shameful stealing as that rec- 
ommended by Gerrit Smith. The doctrines 
and principles of the abolitionists were often 
made a subject of ridicule, but it must be ad- 
mitted that their opponents gained but little 
advantage in the contest of wit and sarcasm. 

At the same convention where Alvan Stewart 
spoke, I heard an address from Beriah Green, 
full of a noble courage and vigor. The only thing 
which I distinctly remember is that he quoted 
the whole or a part of Carlyle's translation of 
Luther's H^min. It was new to me then, and 
I heartily sympathized with the half-military 
ardor with which it inspired the assembly. 



THE EA RL \ ' . / B OLITIONIS TS. 5 5 

I often attended meetings with Charles Lenox 
Remond, a colored man and a popular orator. 
He was not so strong a man as Frederick 
Douglass, but with good ability and many in- 
teresting experiences, he had a most attractive 
elocution. 

William Goodell, one of the truest and no- 
blest of the early anti -slavery men, I did not 
hear until after 1 came to Oberlin. I remember 
sitting with the lamented Professor Hudson in 
the old chapel and enjoying his grand utter- 
ances. I have in memory a picture of this ear- 
nest Christian reformer standing upon the plat- 
form and exhorting us to be prepared for the 
coming of Christ. Gazing into the far distance 
with the rapt look of a seer, he exclaimed: "Be 
ready for His coming! Already lean hear the 
rumbling of His chariot wheels in the distant 
mountain tops." 

I was never so fortunate as to hear Theodore 
D. Weld ; but I constantly met those who had 
heard him, and all reports justified Dr. Lyman 
l^eecher's description of his eloquence as "logic 
on fire." There were other men of great merit 
among these pioneers of freedom of whose 
work I had more or less knowledge, and of 
whom it would be gratif}'ing to speak, did 
time permit. 



56 LECTURES Ai\D ESSAYS. 

It has been pleasant to me to linger among 
these memories ; but I must not delay too 
long. There have never been wanting those 
who would criticise and assail the early aboli- 
tionists. More rarely have they found eulo- 
gists or defenders. For this reason, it has been 
the greater satisfaction to me to dwell specially 
upon the great qualities, intellectual and moral, 
which adorned their lives and still illuminate 
their memories. Time, however, is slowly doing 
them justice. It is softening the popular esti- 
mate of their faults, and making more distinct 
their remarkable merits. But it is still a com- 
mendable labor to inculcate a gracious appre- 
ciation of their worth, for many a day must yet 
elapse before there will be any danger that the 
world will think better o( them than they de- 
serve. 



THE EARLY ABOLITIONISTS- 

III. 

FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNION 

LIBRARY ASSOCIATION OF OBERLIN 

COLLEGE. 

I KNEW Frederick Douglass exceedingly well. 
It began on this wise. In the summer of 184 1, 
fifty-six years ago next summer, I went from 
my home in Connecticut to Millbury, Massachu- 
setts, to attend an anti-slaxery convention. 
There, for the first time, I met Mr. Douglass. 
I was just twenty years of age. He was about 
four years older, and had been three years out 
of slavery. This was the first occasion, beyond 
the limits of my own count}', when I spoke at 
a public meeting, and Mr. Douglass was just 
beginning to address large audiences. I had 
some conversation with him, and liked him 
from the first. The tall, straight, well-built 
youth, with a strong head, eyes and face full 
of humor, and a certain frank manliness of 



58 LECTURES AND ESS A VS. 

bearini;-, won from me, at once, a kindly esteem 
which grew in strength for more than half a 
centiny, and until I read in the morning jour- 
nal that he had been suddenly called to his re- 
ward. When I saw him at Millbury, I did not 
know that he was a great man ; but even then 
there was something in his manner of thought 
and expression, that nn'ght have led me to sus- 
pect it. He was genial and affable and prone to 
laugh at his own deficiencies. He could read 
and write, and had acquired some general knowl- 
edge. On a table near him was a leaf of paper 
on which were scrawled perhaps two-dozen 
words. " What is this. ^" I said. "That," he 
replied with a laugh, " is my speech." 

At Millbury, I also met for the first time, that 
great leader in reform, William Lloyd Garrison. 
A friend who introduced me said to him that I 
was thinking of going to college. Fixing an 
earnest look upon me, he replied, "The anti- 
slavery field is the best college for a young man." 
I accepted this judgment, and acted according- 
ly, until later I was glad to come to Oberlin to 
repair as well as I could, the effects of my mis- 
take. Mr. Douglass was permanently guided 
by Mr. Garrison's opinion on this subject. I 
cannot find that he ever did such a thing as to 
attend a school of any kind; and yet wonderful 



THE EA RL V A B OUTIONIS TS. 59 

results were achiexed in his life. It would 
not do, however, for an average youn^^ man to 
follow, as an example, one who had in himself 
such an imperative law of growth; whose mind 
seemed to be, in itself, a college with many 
courses; who saw everything, heard everything, 
read everything, thought about everything, di- 
gested ever} thing, assimilated the good and re- 
jected the bad. 

The October following the meeting in Mill- 
bury, I engaged regularly in the anti-slavery 
work, and continued in the service of different 
societies for two years and four months. To 
be in the anti-slavery service, in those days, 
was to be much with Frederick Douglass. I 
journeyed with him, ate with him, attended 
meetings with him, and once, as will be 
seen later, slept with him. At an important 
crisis, we were both sent to do a work in 
the State of Rhode Island, my share in which 
he is pleased to speak of in his "Life" 
in a manner much beyond its merit. In 1843, 
the New England Anti-Slavery Society arranged 
for the holding of one hundred conventions, 
commencing in New England, extending through 
New York and Ohio, and as far west as Indian- 
apolis, and returning through Ohio and Penn- 
sylvania to Philadelphia. Six speakers were 



6o LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

detailed to do this work, among whom Mr. 
Douglass and my3elf were included. Of course 
I saw much of him while performing this 
duty. Later my acquaintance was renewed 
with him in Oberlin, which he occasionally vis- 
ited. Later still, I knew him in Washington, 
where he resided most of the time when I was 
there. I went to see him in the office of the 
Recorder of the District of Columbia, over 
which, for a long time, he presided. I visited 
at his home in Anacostia, "and met him on 
other occasions. 1 remember once sitting with 
him and James G. Blaine in a street car. The 
conversation between them had been animated. 
When Mr. Douglass left the car, Mr. Blaine 
said to me, "That is a remarkable man." It 
was thus he impressed e\ery thoughtful person 
who met him. 

This extended acquaintance which 1 had with 
Mr. Douglass, covering a period of man\' years, 
gave me, I trust, an opportunity to form a just 
estimate of the man. 

I cannot, within the limits made necessary by 
this address, attempt a biography of Frederick 
Douglass. Nor can I present man}^ anecdotes 
of his life. It would be easy to fill many pages 
with these. But I should be glad, if I could 
take the strong and wholesome impression 



THE EARL Y ABOLITIONISTS. 6i 

which his character — religious, moral, and intel- 
lectual — made upon me, and convey it to my 
hearers. Something of this I shall try to do. 

To begin with what must ever be the foun- 
dation of all truest manliness, Mr. Douglass, in 
his religious character, was, and, as I believe, 
continued to be, throughout his life, a sincere 
Christian. He had a deeply religious nature, 
and this, as intelligence advanced, was sup- 
ported by clear religious convictions and a re- 
ligious life. It is with a touching simplicity 
that he gives an account in his "Life" 
of his conversion, on a Maryland planta- 
tion, at the age oi thirteen. In his loneli- 
ness and destitution, he felt sore need of some 
one to whom he could go as to a father and 
protector. He heard a white Methodist preacher 
say something which made him feel that he 
could find such a friend in God. He soucrht 
God in prayer, and found the friend for whose 
love and sympathy he so greatly longed. He 
experienced a great hunger to receive commu- 
nications from God, and having learned that 
the Bible was God's word, though not permit- 
ted to have one himself, and having acquired, 
mostly b}' stealth, some knowledge of reading, 
he gathered scattered leaves of the Scriptures 
from the street gutters, "and washed and dried 



62 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

them that, in moments of leisure," he might 
receive the divine message from their pages. 
It was characteristic of the man that, after his 
conversion and as the proper fruit of that moral 
change, he promptly devoted himself, in the 
face of almost insuperable difficulties, and at 
great personal peril, to efforts for the improve- 
ment and elevation of his companions in bond- 
age. He brought together twenty or thirty 
of his fellow-slaves into a Sunday school, and 
gave them the best instruction he could. It 
was necessar}^ first of all, that the}^ should be 
taught to read; but they had no books. The 
teacher himself was taken by surprise to find 
how soon they provided themselves with these in 
the form of the spelling-books which had been 
laid aside by their young masters and mistresses. 
This school, however, was broken up by the 
entrance of violent men, one of whom was his 
white class-leader, into one of its meetings. A 
second attempt was made under more favorable 
conditions. About forty scholars attended the 
school, and a strong attachment, which was 
never forgotten, was formed between the teacher 
and his pupils. In addition to the service 
which he rendered in this Sunday school, he 
gave instruction to other slaves three evenings 
in the week. We can appreciate the earnestness 



THE EA RL V A B OLITIONIS TS. 63 

of these men when we remember that all 
their meetings were unlawful, and attendance 
upon them, in case of discovery, was likely to 
be punished with severe flogging, of which the 
teacher, of course, would receive a double por- 
tion. He soon began praying daily to God 
for deliverance from bondage. This was no 
mere act of helpless self-abandonment. While 
praying to another, he was himself constantly 
watching for opportunities to escape. When 
he had accomplished this, and found a place of 
refuge in New Bedford, the Methodists, having 
discovered his earnest religious character, made 
him a local preacher of their church. Those 
who were with Mr. Douglass in his subsequent 
life, observed how constantly he recognized, in 
his public addresses, the accountability of men 
to God, and the obligations imposed upon them 
by the divine law. To that law, whether found 
in the Scriptures or written upon the human 
soul, he constantly appealed; and he habitually 
acknowledged and quoted the authority of 
Jesus as the Great Teacher sent of God. Some 
of our older citizens will remember an impres- 
sive scene which occurred in the First Church, 
many years ago. After a powerful sermon, one 
Sunday morning, from President Finney, he 
called upon all those who felt that the\' had 



64 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

departed from God, and wished to return and 
renew their consecration to rise and give ex- 
pression to this purpose. Frederick Douglass, 
who happened to be in OberHn, rose in the 
midst of the congregation, and said: "I am 
one of those who have departed from God, and I 
wish to announce my purpose to return to him, 
and Hve a more devoted Christian life." The 
simple earnestness with which the words were 
uttered, touched many hearts, and moistened 
many eyes. I believe that this hearty attach- 
ment to the Christian faith ^continued with him 
to the end; and as, after death, his body lay 
in state in the Metropolitan Methodist Church 
in Washington, I infer that his preference of 
the Methodist denomination remained with 
him through life. 

I have dwelt the longer upon the religious 
character of Mr. Douglass for the reason that 
some persons have taken a different view of it. 
It has been charged that he attacked the Chris- 
tian faith. This is a mistake, but not an un- 
natural one. He entered upon his work in 
New England, when the prejudice against the 
anti-slavery people and the colored race was 
perhaps at its height. Of this prejudice I re- 
gret to say that the churches had their share. 
The idea in most of these was that the colored 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 65 

people should worship by themselves. As Mr. 
Douglass was constantly traveling, in a major- 
ity of the places which he visited, the people of 
color were too few or too poor to have a place 
of worship of their own. When Sunday came, 
therefore, he must, as a rule, either go to a 
church of white people, or not go at all. Hence 
it often happened, as he entered the church 
door, that he was told ** niggers are not admit- 
ted here;" or he was taken in by an usher, and 
quarantined in some corner known as the *' nig- 
ger pew," and so remote from white people that 
his color, which seems to have been thougrht 
catching, should not break out upon them. If 
, a b(jld white abolitionist took him into his own 
pew, it was at the expense of so much irritation 
and disorder as, to use a phrase of the time, 
"• greatly injured the devotional feeling." Not 
to generalize further, take a single case. The 
Rev. Henry Jackson was conducting a re- 
vival in New Bedford. It seems to have been 
successful, and many, doubtless, had been 
blessed. Presumably Brother Jackson had 
been preaching, night after night, from such 
texts as, '' Ho, every one that thirsteth, come 
ye to the waters;" "Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden ;" '* And him that 
Cometh unto me I will no wise cast out." Mr. 



66 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

Douglass wished to share in the blessing, and 
he seemed to have thought that, if he could at- 
tend any religious service with white people, it 
would be a revival service. Accordingly, he 
went to the meeting-house, but — to use his own 
words — " going up the broad aisle for a seat, 
I was met by a. good deacon, who told me, in a 
pious tone, ' We don't allow niggers in here.' " 
Now I am prepared to affirm, from long asso- 
ciation with him, that Mr. Douglass met all 
these slights and insults, not by attacking 
church organization, but by criticising, with 
sharp severity I admit, the wrong-doing of in- 
dividual churches. He was able to make a dis- 
tinction, which some people are not, between 
the intrinsic character of Christian institutions 
and the inconsistent conduct of certain pro- 
fessors. He applied a sounder philosophy 
to the discussion of religious subjects than 
did some older anti-slavery leaders. They 
were noble men and women, and I honored 
them for their fidelity to conscience. But they 
subjected their cause to great disadvantage, and 
lost many sympathizers, by permitting their 
just indignation against the pro-slavery course 
of many ministers and church members, to lead 
them in an attack upon the church and the 
ministry as such. Mr. Douglass never fell into 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 67 

this error. I may add here, that his super- 
iority was equally evident in his treatment of 
government. Prominent anti-slavery men ad- 
vocated a disruption of the Union with slave- 
holders ; and some of them repudiated all 
government founded upon force. They made 
government, an institution in itself necessary 
and beneficent, responsible for the oppressions 
of bad men connected with it. When Mr. Doug- 
lass first published a newspaper in Rochester, 
he, also, took for his motto, "No Union with 
slaveholders." But he afterwards thought his 
way out of this, and took the ground that good 
citizens could perform their duty only by vot- 
ing for righteousness and liberty, and taking 
their full share in the responsibilities of govern- 
ment. Here again, as in the caseof the church, 
he was able to distinguish between an institu- 
tion of the highest value, derived from God 
himself, and a corrupt administration of it. 
And thus it happened that there came from the 
sand hills of Tuckahoe, a parish on the Eastern 
Shore of Maryland, a self-emancipated slave to 
set more distinguished reformers an example 
of the philosophical treatment of government 
and the church. 

I pass to consider another quality of Mr. 
Douglass, which was, in part, the fruit of his 



68 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

religious character, and, in part, a native grace. 
I know not what better name to give.it than 
magnanimity, intending to include under that 
term a group of attractive traits such as pla- 
cability, sweetness of temper, fairness, modera- 
tion, candor, a readiness to forgive — all of 
which have, in common, a certain nobleness of 
mind. What he had to endure for seventy- 
eight years, first from the cruelties of slavery in 
the South, and afterwards from the persecutions 
caused by prejudice in the North, would seem 
to have made his life a long martyrdom. I have 
spoken of his reception by the churches. '1 he 
ill-treatment which he experienced in other 
quarters, as might be expected, was worse. As 
a rule, at the hotels and on the lines of travel, 
whether by railroad, steamboat, omnibus, or 
stagecoach, and at places of public instruction 
or entertainment, such as the lecture hall, the 
opera house, and the concert hall, he was al- 
ways liable either to prompt exclusion or to 
such accommodations as exposed him to cold, 
or filth, or discomfort in some form, and al- 
ways to insult. From some of these places he 
was, at times, ejected by violence and even with 
blows. To such treatment he did not always 
submit without resistance. When traveling, he 
experienced some form of ill-usage almost daily. 



THE EARL Y ABOLITIONISTS. 69 

Now I think you will agree with me in ascrib- 
ing to Hrederick Douglass a magnanimous, pla- 
cable, and forgiving spirit, when I add that he 
endured all this without becoming- soured. 
He was always genial, kindly, charitable. I re- 
peat it, and it is worthy to be written in letters 
of gold: he never became soured. The springs 
of his life seemed to be in the infinite fountains 
of sweetness and light. He turned all sides of 
his nature to the sun, and all sides ripened 
equally mellow and sweet. He had a way of 
making allowance for and partly excusing his 
persecutors, which protected him from much 
bitterness of feeling, and which we should all 
cio well to remember. He said, "Their fault is 
not so much theirs as it is that of the age. It 
is the fruit of a corrupt public opinion. Slave- 
ry has cast its shadow over the whole land, and 
we are all its victims in one way or another. 
It has darkened our understandings, and im- 
posed limitations upon our manhood from 
Avhich it is difficult to escape. We are all, in a 
measure, objects of compassion." When in- 
tentionally insulted, he generally resented it on 
the spot, for he had plenty of spirit ; but the 
feeling was gone in a night. He harbored no 
malice, he retained no grudge. 

One incident, in which I was associated with 



70 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

him, illustrates both these qualities — his quick- 
ness to resent and his readiness to forgive. In 
his "Life," he gives me more credit than I de- 
served for my share in it, but omits the facts 
which revealed his own character. I must 
supply this deficiency. One cold night in De- 
cember, 1843, Mr. Douglass and I took pas- 
sage at New York on one of the Sound steam- 
ers running from that port to Stonington, Con- 
necticut. Mr. Douglass had the impression, 
and I suppose I had the same, that, at that 
time, colored people were allowed, on that line, 
to have a comfortable bed and a seat at the 
table. We had gone on board, and while I, 
perhaps, was looking after our baggage, I hap- 
pened to observe that he appeared to behaving 
some discussion with the man at the clerk's 
window. Stepping forward to learn what it 
was about, I discovered that the clerk had re- 
fused him a ticket to the gentlemen's cabin and 
supper table. Mr. Douglass was saying that 
formerly on the Sound boats, the steward had 
provided him with a bed in some retired place, 
which had offended no one, and he hoped this 
might be done again. I was about to add my 
entreaties to those of my friend, when the clerk 
repeated that no such accommodation could be 
granted. At this moment, I saw, stepping 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 71 

rapidly toward us from the right, a stalwart and 
brutal-looking officer of the boat. As he ap- 
proached, he called out, " Heigh, you nigger! 
What are you doing here, disputing with the 
clerk ! Go back to the part of the boat where 
you belong!" As he said this he put out his 
hand towards Mr. Douglass, as if he would use 
some violence upon his person. My friend 
turned and confronted him with his full height 
and his leonine head. As he did so he fairly 
growled in the man's face, "I'll go where you 
order me, but don't you touch me ! " I looked 
at the man, and as a veracious historian, I af- 
firm that I saw him visibly shrink in size in Mr. 
Douglass' presence. He had found his master, 
and he knew it. He muttered something about 
the great embarrassment they were under in 
trying to please the public, and withdrew. I 
knew what would have happened, had he pre- 
sisted in laying hands on Mr. Douglass. He 
would have found himself lying flat on his back 
on the deck. My friend would have knocked 
him down, and as, at that time, I was not a 
member of any church, I should have enjoyed 
the sight. I told the clerk that as my friend 
could not get a ticket giving him admission to 
the gentlemen's cabin, I would not buy one my- 
self There seemed nothing left for us, but to 



72 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

walk the deck, in the sharp cold, without sup- 
per, without bed, and without fire. We had 
done this for some time, warming ourselves as 
well as we could by exercise, when I made a 
discovery. In one part of the boat I found a 
huge pile of cotton bales heaped up between 
the deck upon which we were walking, and 
what I believe was called the hurricane deck, 
over our heads. In the upper part of this 
space I discovered some warmth which might 
have escaped from the maciiinery. I also ob- 
served that above the cotton bales there was a 
vacant space of perhaps two feet in height. 
Pointing to it, I said to Mr. Douglass, " It seems 
to be warm up there. Why can't we climb up, 
and get a night's rest.'*" He thought we 
could. We accordingly climbed up, crept into 
the warm space, stretched ourselves out, put 
our bags under our heads and had a good 
night's sleep. The next morning we were in 
Stonington, and took the train for Providence. 
As we rushed along through the busy Rhode 
Island villages, I still felt disturbed and irritated 
over the treatment we had received the night 
before. But not a trace of it was left in the 
mind of my friend. He was cheerful, genial, 
hopeful, and happy. 

Another noticeable quality in Mr. Douglass 



THE EA RLY AB OLITIONIS TS. 73 

Avas his loyalty to all honest relations. He was 
a loyal son, a loyal brother, a loyal husband, a 
loyal father, a loyal friend, and a loyal neigh- 
bor. He was loyal to his country and loyal to 
his religion. For all natural relations, — rela- 
tions established by the Creator, — he had a sin- 
cere respect. It would be interesting to dwell 
upon his character in several of these, did my 
space permit. 

In speaking of the qualities of Mr. Douglass 
thus far — his religious character, his magna- 
nimity and readiness to forgive, and his loyalty 
to all honest relations — I have dwelt only upon 
his moral traits; and I may add, before leaving 
this part of my subject, that, running through 
all the qualities I have named, was one charac- 
teristic element which endeared him to all who 
knew him. He had a large capacity for doing 
things which he did not like to do, because he 
ought to do them. He laid hold of disagree- 
able or dangerous work with an appetite, when 
it was decided that he was the best man for it. 
His self-abnegation of character was exhibited 
for several years in one form which gave much 
anxiety to his friends. In 1841 he began giv- 
ing public addresses in New England on the 
subject of slavery, and this he continued for 
four years, or until he visited England. He had 



74 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

adopted the imperfect disguise of changing his 
slave name of Frederick Bailey to that of Freder- 
ick Douglass ; but as, in his lectures, he often 
gave facts and experiences of his life in bondage, it 
was evident that he was liable any day to have 
his identity discovered, to be arrested by a writ 
issued from some United States Court under the 
Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, and, after a hurried 
examination, to be returned to slavery, where 
terrible punishments would have awaited him for 
the double crime of escaping from his prison- 
house and the public exposure of its dark se- 
crets. For four years he could have undertaken 
no journey, nor been in any place where not 
surrounded by his friends, without constant 
danger of arrest. It must have been a most 
anxious and wearing experience, or, at least, 
would have been, to any man of less sunny and 
hopeful temper. Now he might have been 
spared all this by permitting his friends to buy 
him of his old master; and there were many 
abolitionists who were ready to join in furnish- 
ing the money for the purpose. But friends 
whom he reverenced had early convinced Mr. 
Douglass that such an act of purchase would 
be a recognition of the slaveholder's right of 
property in man, which would be morally wrong. 
Hence Mr. Douglass steadily refused to permit 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. jc, 

his freedom to be acquired by purchase, and 
bravely subjected himself for four years to all 
the hazards of his exposed position. It ap- 
pears to me that there have been few no- 
bler examples of self-denial for conscience' 
sake, in the history of the Christian church. 
When he visited England, the Quaker Aboli- 
tionists of that country, without his participa- 
tion, contributed a sufficient amount for the 
purpose, purchased his freedom through a Phil- 
adelphia lawyer, and before he returned to the 
United States presented him with his free pa- 
pers. He was thus enabled to engage once 
more in work in his native country with one 
great burden removed. 

If a young man were to ask me, what is the 
most effective single element in the production 
of a great life, I should answer, that ability 
which Frederick Douglass possessed in so 
marked a degree, to subordinate inclination to 
duty. He v/ho is ready to do disagreeable 
work because the common interest requires it, 
has conquered his place. It is a noble and 
rare gift. It is the mother of industry. It is 
the mother of scholarship. It is the mother 
of inventions. It is the mother of eloquence. 
It is the mother of noble living. He who has 
acquired it, has already risen to a higher plane. 



^6 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

and walks among the angels. By what disci- 
pline of life can it best be obtained? Every 
father would shrink with horror from the 
thought of offering his son, as the means of 
such discipline, twenty-one years of slavery, 
which is what Douglass had, instead of the 
same number of years in school, college, and 
university. And yet, which of the two would 
be the most effective would depend upon the 
man himself. A man may come forth from 
twenty-one years of slavery eager for knowl- 
edge, candid, brave, magnanimous, energetic, 
determined to know God's truth and to teach it. 
A mjan may come forth from twenty-one years 
of scholastic trainingr self-indulgent, effeminate, 
afraid to grapple with hard work, and feeling 
that if obedience to divine law is expected from 
him, then obedience must be made easy and at- 
tractive. Some men appear to think that in 
this universe of thought and of work, they are 
wronged, if they are not amused. I seem to 
see going forth upon the march of life two armies 
— one upon whose banner is inscribed *'Work! 
Service!" another with a banner on which is 
written "Amusement! Self-indulgence!" Each 
man must decide for himself with which army 
he can be most worthily enrolled. 

In considering next the intellectual powers 



THE EARLY ABOLITIONISTS. j-j 

of Mr. Douglass, I must coufiue myself to one 
of these — his eloquence of speech. He had 
noticeable ability as a writer, and the record 
which he made for himself as a journalist and 
an author would have attracted wide and fa- 
vorable attention but for his larger gifts as an 
orator. He was one of the best platform speak- 
ers of his time. Many qualities contributed to 
this. He had wide and accurate information, 
skill and strength in debate, ability in clear and 
picturesque narrative, and great power of state- 
ment. The last was a remarkable gift, and I 
am sorry that 1 cannot enlarge upon it. But 
he had two gifts which were characteristic — 
were specially his own, existing in him as they 
did in no one else ; and upon these only can I 
dwell in this address. These qualities were, first, 
what, for the want of a better word, I may call 
fervor^ and, second, htmior. His fervor was a 
product of his character — his earnestness, es- 
pecially upon every subject connected with hu- 
man liberty. It had in it a certain masterful force, 
which awed and subdued the hearers. But, 
mingled with this, there was a tone of pathetic 
appeal, which won and conciliated. His fer- 
vor was made up of energy and pathos with a 
flavor of Frederick Douglass, and was some- 
thing wholly unique. In his serious speeches, 



78 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

this fervor, in the first sentence, fixed attention, 
which never slackened to the end. Simple, 
unconscious, glowing, it was equally accepta- 
ble to all. The aged and the young, the edu- 
cated and the illiterate, fi-iends and opponents — 
all felt drawn into communion with the speaker, 
and there they were held. The mixed charac- 
ter of the audience never seemed to diminish 
the aggregate of interest. Many of his hearers, 
as was true of hearers of Wendell Phillips, who 
were plain and uncultivated men, and had not 
been thought by their friends capable of the 
highest moral feeling, went away delighted with 
his eloquence, because, by it, new experiences 
and new enthusiasms were opened up in their 
souls. It was a glad discovery to them that 
they possessed inspirations, aspirations after 
great endeavor, high moral purposes of which 
they had not suspected themselves of being ca- 
pable. His fervor called to life the dormant 
germs of whatever is best in men ; and enlarged 
self-respect and a higher order of living were 
among its fruits. 

His humor, like his fervor, was also a rare 
gift. In his milder moods, it was wholly en- 
joyable. I know not from what deep fountain 
of graces in his nature it bubbled up. He gave 
himself wholly to it ; and as you listened, 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 79 

you felt the whole of mind and body suffused 
with a genial sense of fun which warmed the 
heart and tickled all the nerves. His humor 
reminds me of the gentle lightnings which one 
sees on a remote summer cloud. It was play- 
ful, lambent, innocuous, luminous, picturesque. 
But, even in this form, it was educational. With- 
out expecting it and when perfectly off your 
guard, you had been taught a lesson. On 
counting your cherished prejudices, you found 
there was one the less. And it would not al- 
Avays do to trust to the harmlessness of his hu- 
mor. Behind this charming light stood its 
twin brother, heat. Near the boundary of his 
fervor they sometimes united, and then they not 
only illuminated but they scorched. 

Many passages in the speeches of Mr. Doug- 
lass made a very strong impression upon my 
mind. I should be glad if I could reproduce 
them. But in most cases this would be impos- 
sible, only an admiring impression remaining 
in memory. But there are two or three which 
I might do something towards setting before 
you. The first of these is a serious passage, 
and relates to a historical incident which pro- 
duced some excitement at the time. In the 
autumn of 1841, the brig Creole, with the cus- 
tomary officers and crew, and with 135 slaves on 



8o LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

board, in charge of a slave-trader named How- 
ell, sailed from the port of Richmond for New 
Orleans and a market. When they reached the 
neighborhood of the Bahama Islands, the slaves 
rose, took possession of the brig and steered 
her into the port of Nassau, where the British 
authorities set them at hberty. It was, perliaps,. 
some time before this, that a Southern statesman^ 
had published a speech or pamphlet in which 
he had endeavored to prove that of all polit- 
ical communities, those which are based upon 
slavery as a foundation are the most secure, and 
the best protected against disorder. Mr. Doug- 
lass was making a speech in which he was re- 
futing this proposition. He was fond of intro- 
ducing current events into his public efforts, 
and, on this occasion, he made the case of the 
Creole a part of his argument. I can give you 
the substance of his thought and some of his 
language. The rest must be my own. Brilliant 
phrases and felicitous turns of expression will be 
his ; mine will be the prosy passages which con- 
nect them. He said, in substance: — 

"The Creole had gained the high seas, and 
was entering those Southern latitudes which 
quiet waters and perpetual summer make en- 
chanting. The day was warm, and most of the 
officers and crew and the slave trader were 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 8i 

taking their noontide siesta. They felt secure, 
and why should they not so feel? Did not 
their ship's community rest upon slavery, the 
safest of all foundations? There was a man at 
the wheel, and one or two sailors lounging 
about the deck. Nothing more was needed. 
In the hold below, one hundred and thirty-five 
slaves with manacled wrists, were sweltering 
and suffocating, in the narrow space, from heat 
and foul air. Their faces all wore that stolid 
and hopeless look common to men who are 
simply trying to endure existence. Did I say 
all ? There was one exception. There was one 
restless brain — one restless eye and animated 
face. Madison Washington, who bore the name 
of the Father of his Country and that of one of 
its greatest statesmen, and who, on this day, 
acted worthily of both, sat planning in the sul- 
try air. He resolved that he would go on deck 
and learn the situation. Strong and resolute, 
he struggled with his chains until he broke 
them. He passed swiftly up the hatchway, 
and looked about him. No one saw him. 
Around him, on every hand, spread out 
as far as the eye could see, and reposing in 
beauty, was the mighty ocean. Above was 
the infinite sky, stretching away and away 
and away, until, on the distant horizon, it bent 



82 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

down to kiss the sleeping sea. As he looked 
upon this glorified scene, the great thought 
came to him that the God who made the sky 
and the sea, as well as the solid land, had made 
him and his comrades free. To think was to act. 
He ran below. In a few moments he had helped 
nineteen stalwart men to break their chains. 
'Follow me,' he said to them, 'and do as 1 tell 
you, and I will make you free.' They rushed 
on deck. The first few white men they met 
they bound with cords. But there was an out- 
cry, and soon a fierce struggle. The slaves 
conquered, and took control of the ship. Sev- 
eral white men were wounded ; only one was 
killed. He, by an accident which we can but 
approve, was the slave-dealer. Washington 
spared his white enemies as far as was possible, 
consistently with the securing of liberty for him- 
self and his friends. ' It was not our purpose,' he 
afterward testified, *to kill any one. We only 
wished to obtain our freedom. The killing of 
a man was an unfortunate incident of the con- 
test.' The mutineers now had control of the 
ship ; but what should they do with her.^ They 
knew nothing of navigation ; but Madison Wash- 
ington had some knowledge of reading and 
writing, and he had observed the movements of 
the sun and of the stars in their courses. He 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 83 

knew that if the brig was to go to the port of 
New Orleans, she must soon turn her bow to 
the west; and he also knew that if she should 
make a course somewhat east of south, she 
would soon- reach that desirable region, the 
British West Indies. He kept two stalwart 
black men stationed, night and day, one on 
each side of the man at the wheel, and that of- 
ficer was made to understand that any act of 
treachery on his part would be followed by in- 
stant death. He chose not to die, and in forty- 
eight hours they had entered the harbor of Nas- 
sau, in the Bahama Islands, and saw the Brit- 
ish flag floating over the forts. The English 
authorities came on board, investigated the 
case, and decided that the mutineers could not 
be returned to the United States. They were all 
set free, and although the long arm of Daniel 
Webster was stretched across the Atlantic to re- 
claim them, there came back nothing in his 
hand except the answer, 'There is no writ, no 
process, known to British law, under which 
these men can be arrested.' And thus was 
added another to the list of humiliating failures 
of social organizations founded upon the boast- 
ed security of chattel slavery." 

The serious defect in this attempt to re- 
produce a representative passage from Mr. 



84 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

Douglass' speeches, is that I cannot give his 
p-ieat manner — his noble fervor. 

But if thus imperfect has been my success in 
trying to give an example of his serious dis- 
course, still greater must be my difficulties in 
endeavoringto bring out any humorous passages 
from his speeches. His humor was a subtle, 
volatile, delightful fragrance. But it is gone, 
and no one can reproduce it for us. When his 
audiences discovered that he was about to in- 
dulge in a humorous treatment of his subject, 
they, as a rule, settled themselves for a time 
of quiet enjoyment. But there was one pas- 
sage in some of his discourses, which was often 
called for and often" delivered, and which, I 
think, produced more convulsive laughter in 
large popular audiences than any passage of 
similar length delivered by any other American 
orator. It was an account of a sermon which 
used to be preached at the request of the mas- 
ter, by some judiciously selected minister of a 
sensational and subservient order, to the slaves 
upon the plantation, to make them contented 
with their condition. If the sermon was satis- 
factory, the preacher received handsome pres- 
ents from the planter. I heard this sermon 
more than once, and would give much if I had 
a verbatim report of it. Some of the principal 



THE EARLY A B OLITIONIS TS. 85 

points — the dry bones — I can easily give you, 
though mostly in my own language ; but the 
flesh and blood are irrecoverably gone. As pre- 
sented by Mr. Douglass, no doubt with sub- 
stantial accuracy, it was a brilliant example of 
irony, parody, caricature, and rediictio ad ab- 
S2i7'diim, all combined. It abounded in phrases 
which, though innocent in the original preacher, 
when deHvered by Mr. Douglass with suggest- 
ive tone and emphasis to a Northern audience, 
became irresistibly ludicrous. Most of these 
haVe escaped my memory. The text always 
was, "Servants, obey your masters." It was 
not thought important that precisely these 
words are nowhere found in the New Testa- 
ment, because so much of the New Testament 
is assumed to be expressed in them. The 
preacher explained his text and presented his 
points to his audience of slaves somewhat after 
this fashion : — 

"The word 'servants' means slaves such as 
you, as it always does in the Bible. The word 
'masters' means owners of slaves such as your 
masters. The text, then, contains a command 
of God addressed directly to you to obey your 
masters. This ought to be enough to secure 
your obedience without another word ; for God 
is not only your master, but the Master of your 



86 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

masters. We are all, masters and slaves, his 
servants, for we are all bought with a price. 
God's command, therefore, as I said, ought to 
be enough. But as your minds are weak, and 
need much explanation, I will give you several 
particular reasons why you should obey this 
command. 

** First. You should do it from gratitude. It 
is due to the system of slavery that your ances- 
tors were brought from a land of heathenish 
darkness, and placed in this country, where they 
and their posterity could enjoy gospel privi- 
leges — could have the hope of heaven instead 
of the prospect of an awful hell. Now your 
masters, under the providence of God, have the 
management of this system of slavery, and 
hence you should obey. them. It is the least re- 
turn which you can make for your great bless- 
ings. 

" Second. Your masters can take care of you, 
and you cannot take care of yourselves. You 
are to them what the hands and feet are to the 
head. They can think and plan and provide, 
and you cannot. Remember what a mercy it is 
for you to have food and clothing and shelter 
and support in old age, and rest on the Sabbath, 
and gospel privileges, all provided for you with- 
out any care on your part. What would become 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 87 

of you, if you had no such protectors and 
care-takers ? To understand what your situa- 
tion, in that case, would be, you have only to 
consider the miserable condition of those among 
you who call themselves free negroes, and whom 
we have sometimes found at the door of your 
humble cottages begging for apiece of bread. 
Still more awful is the condition of those mis- 
guided negroes who have escaped to the North, 
and of whose wretched condition we have such 
sad accounts. 

*' Third. You should obey your masters be- 
cause it is in accord with the great plan of God. 
The Creator, in the councils of infinite wisdom, 
had decided that it was best for the human race 
that they should be divided into two great por- 
tions, slaves and the masters of slaves. But 
there was much danger that the world would 
be filled with constant strife, and even war and 
bloodshed, in the attempt to decide to which of 
these classes different tribes or different men 
should belong. To save all this strife, and to 
put the question forever at rest, God determined 
to put distinctive and unmistakable marks upon 
these two classes — to make all the men and 
women designed to be slaves black, and all the 
men and women designed to be masters white. 
By this simple and beautiful device, each man 



88 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

is enabled to know at once to what class he 
belongs. What a merciful provision this plan of 
God is, and how reasonable it is that you should 
show your acceptance of it by obeying your 
masters. 

"' FotirtJi. You should obey your masters be- 
cause you will thus promote the world's com^ 
merce, and through it the world's civilization. 
Nothing is more necessary to trade among the 
nations than the four great staples, tobacco, 
rice, cotton, and sugar. But these can be pro- 
duced only in those climates where the white 
races cannot engage in severe physical labor. 
God has so ordained that your masters can 
manage plantations, can organize labor, andean 
superintend the production of these staples ; 
but they have not the physical qualities to go 
into the field with the hoe and the plow. You 
see how they have to avoid exposure to the sun. 
If your mistress happens to step for a moment 
from the porch of the great house into the 
open sunshine, she is compelled at once to 
shade her face and head with some covering. 
How soon her complexion is spoiled by ex- 
posure to the sun. But, my black hearers, your 
complexions cannot be spoiled. You are chil- 
dren of the sun. You rejoice to have his rays 
beat upon your heads. You gladly sleep in 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS. 89 

his noonday heats. To work liard in the sun 
of a hot climate is just what you are fitted for, 
as were your ancestors in Africa before )'ou. 
You should rejoice, then, in the grand share 
which is given you in the world's work, and 
obey your masters." 

I am painfully aware how poor a representa- 
tive of Mr. Douglass' effort this passage is. To 
do him justice you must substitute for my stiff 
and formal language the racy and dramatic 
words of the plantation preacher as Mr. Doug- 
lass gave them to us. You must imagine a 
liundred humorous phrases and incidental allu- 
sions which i can no longer recall. More than 
all, you must imagine his marvelous power of 
imitation and characterization — the lioly tone 
of the preacher — the pious snuffle — the up- 
turned eye — the funny affectation of profound 
wisdom — the long-drawn, almost sepulchral 
notes in which the monitory portions were ren- 
dered — the attempt to grow gallant and min- 
cing and tender when the delicate complexion 
of the lady of the great house, and the certainty 
that it must suffer if exposed to the sun, were 
spoken of — and the tearful sympathy with 
which the speaker dwelt upon the helpless con- 
dition of his hearers in case they should cease 
to be the property of slave-holding masters. 



90 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

All this^Mr. Douglass reproduced in a manner 
worthy of Garrick. 

Mr. Douglass was a mulatto, and it has been 
common to speak of his oratorical powers as 
due to his white blood. I knew of an Irishman 
who took the opposite view. Mr. Douglass was 
speaking with great effect in a town in Ohio, on 
the Ohio River. In the rear of the audience 
stood our Irishman, and near him a Kentuckian 
who had come across the river to hear the now 
famous fugitive slave. Some persons in their 
vicinity were remarking upon the eloquence of 
the speaker. "But don't you see," said the 
Kentuckian, " he is half white." The Irishman 
responded, " An' sure, if half a na}'gur can spake 
like that, what would a houl one do .-^ " Fred- 
erick Douglass himself gave large credit for the 
gifts which he possessed to his mother. She 
appears to have been a remarkable woman. He 
states that she was the only colored person in 
Tuckahoe parish who had learned to read. 
Only a strong native desire for knowledge could 
have enabled her to achieve this accomplishment 
in face of the difficulties which had to be over- 
come. He says, " She was tall and finely pro- 
portioned, of dark, glossy complexion, with reg- 
ular features, and amongst the slaves was re- 
markably sedate and dignified." She died while 



THE EARL V ABOLITIONISTS, 91 

he was still young, and of this he remarks, '* To 
me it has ever been a grief that I knew my 
mother so little, and have so few of her words 
treasured in my remembrance." 

Such, though very imperfectly presented, 
were some of the qualities of Frederick Doug- 
lass. They were the weapons of his warfare. 
It was with the aid of these that he did his 
noble life work. I have thought that with the 
exception of two names, those of Garrison and 
Phillips, he did as much as any man of his gen- 
eration to form that advanced public opinion 
which sustained the North in the war for the 
Union, and enabled President Lincoln to issue 
his Proclamation of Plmancipation. His aud- 
iences were generally large, and, as a rule, they 
gave him attentive and candid hearing. This 
was due not only to his great powers, but to 
his reputation for fairness. His genial, kindly 
spirit opened all ears and all hearts to his ap- 
peals. If such a distinction is permissible, it 
might be said that though there was much pre- 
judice against his color, there was little or none 
against him. They could say with Desdemona, 
'* I saw Othello's visage in his mind." As a 
favorite with popular assemblies, he ranked 
with Wendell Phillips. The favorable im- 
pression which he made was still farther 



92 LECTURES AND ESSA VS. 

strengthened by his absolutely unique history. 
In all time there is scarcely another example 
of so noble a life from so humble a beginning. 
People wished to hear the man who had won 
victory in the battle at such fearful odds — the 
chattel slave who had become one of Boston's 
favorite orators. They said, '* Let us greet 
this speaker 

' Who breaks his birth's invidious bar 
And grasps the skirt of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance 

And grapples with his evil star.' " 

To these causes it was owing that he constant- 
ly made converts, and strengthened the anti- 
slavery feeling of the country. It was thus 
that he did a mighty work in educating the na- 
tion for that fearful struggle in which it was 
soon to engage. 

It was not more to the honor of Frederick 
Douglass than to that of the whole nation, that 
the government repeatedly recognized his great 
merit by bestowing upon him responsible of- 
ficial trusts. Some of these I may mention. 
President Grant made him a member, in com- 
pany with other distinguished men, of the Com- 
mission to Santo Domingo. President Hayes 
appointed him Marshal of the District of Col- 
umbia, an office with many delicate duties. 



THE EARLY ABOLITIONISTS. 93 

President Garfield i^ave him the lucrative place 
of Recorder of the District of Columbia. Pres- 
ident Harrison appointed him Minister Resi- 
dent to Hayti. I might add that in 1872 he 
was nominated as Presidential elector-at-large 
by the Republican party of the State of New 
York, and after the election was chosen to 
carry the electoral vote of that State to the 
National Capitol. These decorations w-ere the 
more honorable because they were unsought. 
Mr. Douglass was never an office-seeker. When 
a member of the government wished to give 
him an appointment, he " sent for him," as the 
Queen of England is said to *' send " for the 
man whom she wishes to make her premier. 
It wa^ thus reserved for this fugitive slave to 
offer to our public men an example of dignified 
self-respect in the receiving of high office. His 
recognition by the people at large was as cor- 
dial as that by the government. His income 
from the sale of his books and from constant 
employment as a lecturer, enabled him to ac- 
cumulate a handsome estate. 

It has been said that Frederick Douglass was 
an example to his race; it would be more just 
to say that he was an example to all races. 
When Marshal Turenne, the great field officer 
of Louis XIV., was killed in a battle between 



94 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

the French army and that of the Empire, the 
commander of the imperial forces, instead of re- 
ceiving the news of the death of his great adver- 
sary with expressions of satisfaction, as those 
about liim expected, halted his column, and with 
uncovered head said to his suite, " To-day a 
soldier has fallen who did honor to man." So 
prejudice itself, standing uncovered by the 
grave of Frederick Douglass, might say, ** Here 
rests one who did honor to mankind." 



MY FIRST LEGISLATIVE 
EXPERIENCE. 

I. 

WORK IN THE LEGISLATURE. 

A THURSDAY LECTURE. 

I HAD chosen as my subject for this occasion, 
''The First Republican General Assembly of 
the State of Ohio." That General Assembly, 
of which I happened to be a member, covered 
the period from the first Monday in January, 
1856, to the first Monday in January, 1858. 
Its members were elected in October, 1855 — 
thirty-three years ago last October^ — a length 
of time corresponding to what we call a gener- 
ation. It was thought you might be interested 
to hear from a participant in the Republican 
work of that time, some account of what Re- 
publicans were doing when they were first com- 
ing into power in the different States, before 
any of the students who now hear me were 

*This lecture was delivered in 1888. 



96 LECTURES AND ESSA VS. 

born — some account of their aims, their meth- 
ods, tlieir spirit, tlieir theory of government, 
their subjects of legislation — some account of 
how the young Republicans of that day ap- 
peared, and how they did their work. But as 
I was getting my pen sharpened to deal with 
this subject, I encountered a difficulty. I natu- 
rally found that 1 remembered much better, or 
had much better means of recalling, what I had 
done myself in the Legislature of 1856, with 
the motives for it and the means employed, 
than what was done by others. The danger, 
therefore, was, if I went on with the title I had 
chosen, that it would appear to you that under 
the guise of describing a General Assembly, I 
had given an account of myself. Hence I de- 
cided that whatever of egotism there might be in 
this lecture, should be openly avowed, and that 
my subject should be announced as "My First 
Legislative Experience." With this statement 
of my theme, I hope that I shall still be able 
to give you a sample of what the work of young 
Republicans was a third of a century ago, and 
I shall not be prevented from speaking of the 
work of others than myself so far as 1 can do so 
intelligently. But it is not easy to give a clear 
account of the action of the members of a State 
Legislature which met thirty-three years since. 



FIRST LEGISLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 97 

There is no official report of tlieir speeches and 
the explanations of their votes, and the reports 
of the newspapers of the time are either no 
longer accessible, or are too imperfect or un- 
fair to be satisfactory. I have recently thou<j^ht 
that the*'Cong"ressional Record," which contains 
complete reports of all speeches of members of 
Congress, and, of course, much nonsense, is 
worth all that it costs as a help to historical 
research. 

The fresh series of outrages upon liberty 
which began with the *' Compromise Measures 
of 1850," including the Fugitive Slave Law and 
its harsh execution during the years that fol- 
lowed its enactment; and which closed with 
the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the repeal 
of the "Missouri Compromise," of 1820, and 
the opening of all our free territory to the rav- 
ages of slavery, had at length enabled the 
dullest Northern men to see that the countr)' 
could not continue to exist half slave and half 
free — that slavery and freedom were, as they 
always must be, engaged in mortal conflict, and 
that one or the other must perish. It was for 
the people to say which was the better worth 
saving. A political revolution broke out in 
1 854, which carried the day in most of the North- 
ern States. The most common designation 



98 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

for the new party was ** Anti-Nebraska, ' 
although in some States it was ah'eady known 
as Republican. In 1855, a Republican organ- 
ization was completed in nearly all the free 
States where this had not been done in 1854. 
One of these was Ohio. Our State had gone 
Anti-Nebraska and had elected an unbroken 
Anti-Nebraska delegation to Congress in 1854. 
This work had not been distinctively Republi- 
can. But in 1855, a convention of men opposed 
to slavery extension, met at Columbus, took 
the name of Republican, and gave the people 
an earnest of their serious purpose by the nom- 
ination of Salmon P. Chase for Governor. Ohio 
was now in harmony with the new movement. 
But there must be a Republican Legislature as 
well as a Republican Governor. Ohio had 
never had either as yet; but it was necessary 
she should have both, if she would protect her 
people against the aggressions of the slave- 
holding oligarchy. The papers were soon en- 
gaged in discussing the merits of candidates for 
the House and Senate. 

In Lorain County it was often said that Ober- 
lin should have the candidate for the House of 
Representatives. The unpopularity and even 
persecution which Oberlin had encountered at 
an earlier day by faithful adherence to a hated 



FJRST LEGISLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 99 

but righteous cause, were thought to furnish a 
good reason for bestowing upon her this mark 
of approval. Professor Henry E. Peck and my- 
self had both been mentioned for the position. 
He was an alumnus of our Theological Depart- 
ment, had been a successful minister of the 
Gospel in Rochester, New York, and had after- 
wards been called to the Chair of Sacred Rhe- 
toric in this Institution. When talked with 
about accepting a nomination, he, good man 
that he was, did what I hope you will all do in 
cases of doubt affecting the interests of the 
College — he consulted the Faculty. It so hap- 
pened that I was not present at the meeting 
when the subject was considered, but I learned 
afterwards that the Faculty advised him not to 
permit the use of his name, partly because he 
was so widely known as a cleigyman, which 
they thought an objection to his going into pol- 
itics, and partly because they doubted whether 
it was good policy for professors in the College 
to be candidates for office. In the meantime I 
had so far committed myself as to say to some 
Republicans that had talked with me that I 
would take the nomination should the people 
think it best to give it. As the public service 
required of a Representative would be rendered 
in the winter, wiiich was then the time of our 



100 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

loiiij^ vacation, I had assumed that the Faculty 
would not object to my acceptin^^ the position. 
My nomination by a nearly unanimous vote 
followed soon afterwards, at a mass meeting 
held in Elyria, and ihe canvass resulted in my 
election by a large majority in October. Pro- 
fessor Peck was active in promoting both the 
nomination and the election. I was never 
brought before the Faculty for the decision I 
had made, and I was afterwards indebted to 
several of them for sympathy and assistance in 
carrying on my legislative work. 

I cannot pass on without adding a word to 
what I have said of Professor Peck. He has 
always appeared to me to be one of the bright- 
est and most estimable men that Oberlin has 
produced. In his intellectual efforts he was 
clear, clean-cut, instructive, magnetic, witty, 
incisive, logical, and analogical. Morally he 
was, in a truer sense than the elder Mirabeau, 
a " Friend of Man," sympathetic, helpful, watch- 
ful for the good of others, incited to action by 
a heart of love. He finally entered the public 
service as minister to Hayti, where he did ad- 
mirable work both for his own country and for 
the people to whom he was accredited. The 
dispatches which he sent to his government 
from Port au Prince, are so statesmanlike, so 



FIRST LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE. loi 

sagacious, convey so inuch knowledge, and give 
so clear a view of the situation, that they take 
rank among the best papers in our diplomatic 
literature. He died at his post while engaged 
in this faithful and disinterested service, and I 
afterwards had the melancholy satisfaction of 
successfully petitioning that excellent minister 
of State, Secretary Fish, to pay out of his con- 
tingent fund the amount necessary to remove the 
remains of my colleague from their far-off grave 
in the tropics to the Oberliji cemetery, where 
they now lie interred. His wasted frame added 
one more to the treasures of that hallowed 
ground. 

In October, 1855, it was still a new thing 
for an old abolitionist to be elected to office, 
and it was certainly a new thing to me. A 
shower of friendly votes was a pleasanter ex- 
perience than a shower of brickbats. The 
announcement that the Republican candidate 
in Lorain had carried the county by an over- 
whelming majority, no doubt made pleasant 
reading in the papers, and it is not improbable 
that to the member elect the cause of liberty 
w^ore a more hopeful aspect than it had done 
before. But this holiday feeling became more 
serious, when he learned, in conversation and 
from correspondence, how much he was expected 



102 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

to accomplish in the way of important legis- 
lation in the coming General Assembly. The 
first subject which claimed attention, and one 
in which there was general interest, was the 
relations of the State to the new Fugitive Slave 
Law. Under the provisions of that law, the 
personal liberty of two classes of free and unof- 
fending citizens was exposed to special danger. 
The first of these consisted of persons alleged 
to be fugitives, and to the second belonged 
their anti-slavery friends who tried to protect 
them. It was not uncommon in those days to 
hear that men known to have been free all their 
lives had been sent into slavery. 

Mr. Horace Mann told us in a speech in Con- 
gress that "of the first eight persons doomed 
to life-long bondage under the Law, four were 
free men." Again, all through the North, citi- 
zens of the highest respectability were arrested 
and thrown into prison, on a mere suspicion of 
having aided a fugitive to escape his pursuer. 

The great and sufficient protection of our 
citizens against these atrocities should have 
been found in the writ of Habeas Corpus. In 
all these cases, our State courts and judges 
should have had the power to bring before 
them, under the great writ of right, the person 
restrained of his liberty, to investigate the case 



FIRST LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE. 103 

dispassionately and thoroughly, and to set the 
prisoner at liberty when unlawfully held. From 
the time of Charles the Second down to the 
present day, the very soul, the vital principle 
of the writ of Habeas Corpus, that which has 
made it what it is, has been that under it you 
could Jiave the body of the arrested man before 
the court issuing the writ. Without the cus- 
tody of the prisoner, the power of the court is 
a nullity and the issuing of the writ a farce. 
But it was one of the bitter fruits of that ser- 
vility which slavery had produced in the North, 
that our State courts in their relations to Fed- 
eral officers had surrendered all the control 
which the writ of Habeas Corpus gives over 
the body of the man alleged to be unlawfully 
deprived of liberty. Here the writ was virtu- 
ally abolished. The liberties and the homes of 
American citizens were left defenseless to an 
extent that in England would not have been 
endured for an hour. If the self-respect of the 
judge ever permitted him to address the writ 
to a man claiming to be a United States officer, 
that official took no further notice of it than to 
make return that he held the prisoner under a 
writ from a United States court, which court 
was commonly only a Commissioner under the 
Fugitive Slave Law. The return itself might 



10+ LEC TURJ^S A ND ESS A YS. 

be a falsehood, but the State judge, as a rule, 
did not attempt to proceed any further. Like 
other States, Ohio had, at that time, a Habeas 
Corpus Act, wiiich was passed in 1811, and 
which required tliat the body of the prisoner 
sliould be produced; atid the writ issued under 
it commanded that this should be done. But 
this command was systematically disobeyed. 
I suppose it was claimed that the return of the 
Federal officer that he held the prisoner by a 
writ from a United States court, was a con- 
structive production of the body. 

The defenses of liberty being thus broken 
down or abandoned, several Northern States, 
previous to 1855, had passed what were known 
as " Personal Liberty Bills" for the protection 
of their citizens. These bills assumed various 
forms according to the state of public opinion 
and the necessities of the case in different com- 
munities. Now that a Republican Legislature 
and Governor had been elected in Ohio, it was 
felt, especially on the Reserve, that this State 
also must enact some law which would be a 
safeguard of the liberties of its people. This 
subject w^as the one which had been principally 
discussed during the campaign, and the interest 
in it was iticreased by the result of the election. 
It was said that upon me as an old anti-slavery 



FIRST LEGISLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 105 

lecturer and a representative of Oberlin, would 
devolve the responsibility of introducing and 
carrying through a personal liberty bill. This 
was the work which, above everything else, I 
desired to do, but, for reasons which will ap- 
pear, ic looked like a formidable undertaking. 

The next subject of lei^islation urged upon 
my attention, like the one already named, made 
a strong appeal to humane feeling. The Stale 
of Ohio had made no provision for the dis- 
cipline, education, and reform of its juvenile 
offenders. It had never established a reform 
school. When a young man, engaged in anti- 
slavery work in New England, I had become 
aware of the existence of a i^twi institutions of 
this kind, and had known something of their 
objects, methods, and results. I had felt greatly 
interested in these schools, and the interest had 
continued with me, though I had no thought 
of ever having a share in the establishment of 
one of them. But after my election, the merely 
vague and general interest which I had felt in 
this subject was quickened into something 
definite by a letter which I received from Mr. 
L. L. Rice, a gentleman well known to us here, 
who died a {^tsN years since in Honolulu. 

Mr. Rice had been editor of a newspaper 
in Painesville, and was soon to be appointed 



io6 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

private secretary of Governor Chase. He was 
one of the early abolitionists, and had a warm 
heart for everything that concerned human well- 
being. He wrote me calling attention to the 
neglected juvenile offenders of the State, and 
described their claims to sympathy and help. 
He denounced the policy which had busied 
itself about many indifferent matters and had 
left these hundreds of little ones to perish. It 
was a shame to Ohio that she had not given 
earlier attention to their needs. But now it 
appeared that this good cause also had found its 
opportunity. There was a majority of Repub- 
licans in the Legislature, and Oherlin had a 
representative among them. Both as a teacher 
and as an anti-slavery philanthropist, he was 
presumably interested in these often hungry 
and homeless orphans of the State. He must 
espouse the cause of this perishing class, and 
see to it that the Legislature did not adjourn 
until some law had been passed for their rescue 
and reform. You will see that I could do nothing 
less than to add ''Reform Schools" to my list 
of causes demanding legislation. I commenced 
corresponding and making inquiries, and soon 
accumulated quite a mass of reports, catalogues, 
and other literature upon the subject. 

A third cause which a representative of 



FIRST LEGISLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 107 

Oberlin was supposed to be under special obli- 
gation to ciiampion, was the new common 
school system of the State. The legislation of 
Ohio in regard to its public schools had been 
somewhat ill digested and unsystematic until 
the year 1853. During that year a carefully 
considered and comprehensive law of which 
Mr. Harvey Rice, a leading Democrat of Cleve- 
land, was the author, was passed, much to its 
credit, by a Democratic legislature. This law 
was a great improvement upon the past, was 
regarded with satisfaction by teachers and the 
friends of education, and with some amend- 
ments has remained the school law of the State 
until this day. When the Republicans came 
into power, they exhibited some hostility to 
this law, and proposed to amend it to such an 
extent as would impair its efficiency. This 
was owing, in a measure, perhaps, to party 
feeling. The school law had been passed by 
the pro-slavery Democracy, and was likely for 
that reason alone to be wrong. But the oppo- 
sition to it was due still more to the feeling in 
favor of retrenchment. The school system cost 
too much, and the large power of taxation 
granted in it must be severely limited. The 
Democratic minority in the new legislature 
were generally disposed to stand by the law, 



I o8 LEC TURKS A ND ESS A YS. 

and it was deemed important that some Re- 
publican should take an active part in effecting 
a union between them a id such Republicans 
as were sufficiently devoted to the cause of 
education to be willing to separate from their 
party friends in their votes upon this question. 
But what Republican could so reasonably be 
expected to do this as a man from a college 
town who was himself a teacher? Hence I 
was told that I must watch over this interest 
also and see that it received no detriment. 

Tiiere was one more cause which it was sup- 
posed that none but an Oberlin man could, or 
at least would, undertake to defend. That 
paragraph in the constitution of the State 
which bestowed and defined the right of suf-. 
frage, contained the limiting word "white." 
Now if there wa; anything which might be said 
to enrage the early abolitionists of Ohio, it 
was this word "white" in their organic law. 
They talked of its "meanness," its "little- 
ness," its "narrowness," its " unscripturalness," 
its " unphilosophicalness," and its every other 
kind of "ness" whether in the dictionary or 
out of it. How could I ever look my constitu- 
ents in the face again, if I came home leaving 
that word in the constitution.? The removal 
of this limitation upon the privilege of the 



FIRST LEG I SLA 7IVE EXPERIENCE. 109 

elective franchise, was no doubt most desirable. 
But all that could le^^ally be accomplished 
thr()u<^h the Legislature was the submission to 
the people of an amendment to the constitution, 
securing this object. How impracticable even 
this was, became apparent when it was ascer- 
tained that every Democrat and more that half 
of the Republicans were opposed to it. But I 
promised to make an effort. 

Thus there were four principal things which 
I was expected to accomplish — the passage of 
a personal liberty bill, the establishment of a 
reform school, the protection of the common 
school system, and such preliminary legislation 
as was necessary in order to strike the word 
*' white" from the constitution. 

This would seem to have been work enough 
for an inexperienced man, but it must not be 
supposed that this was all which I was asked 
to do. I received several suggestions as to 
legislation from the lawyers of my county. I 
do not very well remember what these were for 
this session, but they would cover such points 
as a bill to enlarge the legal definition of burg- 
lary so as to include the violent breaking into 
a smokehouse in the night-time to steal hams; 
a bill to resfulate the selection of talesmen for 
juries by sheriffs of counties; a bill to increase 



1 10 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

the mileage and per diem of county commis- 
sioners. The farmers also had suggestions for 
their member-elect. These related to such 
subjects as laws to protect sheep against dogs; 
to compel railway companies to fence their 
tracks; to prevent cattle and swine from run- 
ning at large; and to reduce the salaries of 
members of the General Assembly. You will 
see that it was high time this should be done 
when I tell you that under the corrupt rule of 
our Democratic predecessors the pay of mem- 
bers had gone up to the enormous sum of four 
dollars per day, not more than half of which 
was charged at the hotels for their board. A 
general interest was expressed this year — and 
expressed, doubtless, to myself as well as 
others — to have something done for the pro- 
tection of birds, except, as the phrase ran, 
"crows, blackbirds, and birds of prey." The 
doctors wished us to pass a law for the promo- 
tion of anatomical science. This was to be 
accomplished, I believe, by handing over to the 
medical colleges the bodies of certain criminal 
and pauper classes — not, of course, until after 
they were dead. 

Thus equipped with suggestions, exhorta- 
tion, and warning, I set out for Columbus some 
days before the opening of the session, as you 



FIRST LEGISLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 1 1 1 

will no doubt think it was wise that I should 
do. In due time the two Houses were organ- 
ized. Mr. VanVorhes of Athens County was 
elected Speaker of the House of Representa- 
tives, which proved to be an excellent choice. 
He gave the old Free-soilers from the Western 
Reserve their fair share of good positions upon 
committees. I was placed upon three standing 
committees — those on Common Schools, the 
Petn'tentiary, and the Revision of Bills. Of the 
Committee on Common Schools, I was made 
the chairman. I was also appointed from time 
to time upon select committees. 

In entering upon my work in the House, 
attention was first given to the preparation of 
some form of law which would protect the 
hberty of the people against the Fugitive Slave 
Act. But it seemed necessary before taking 
any decisive step to become acquainted with 
my fellow-members and see what help I could 
hope for from them. About one half of the 
Republicans were ver)^ conservative, and much 
inclined to vote with the Democrats upon any 
question which looked Hke one of Abolitionism. 
They had nothing that could be called anti- 
slavery /;'/;/<://'/^ as that term was understood 
in Oberlin. They were indignant at the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise. They thought 



112 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

slavery should be prohibited in the territories 
north of 36° 30', and they would have been 
glad if it could have been prohibited in all the 
territories; but this they thought more than 
we had any right to expect. As to a personal 
liberty bill they didn't know, but were fearful. 
What was it like? Wasn't it Abolitionism? 
How would it sound on the Ohio River? 
Wouldn't it hurt the feelings of our South- 
ern brethren? Wouldn't it divide our party? 
Wouldn't it endanger the Union? How did I 
know but what Garrison would approve of it? 
I reasoned with these brethren, comforted them 
as well as I could, and in hope of carrying 
them with me allowed several weeks to elapse 
before introducing the bill. In this delay, I 
had, as I understood it, the full approval of 
Governor Chase, with whom I conferred freely 
upon the subject. He told me that, when the 
bill should come before the House, he would 
talk with members in favor of its passage so far 
as he could do so without exposing himself to 
the charge of trying unduly to influence a co- 
ordinate branch of the Government. 

Matters were in this shape when there oc- 
curred in the city of Cincinnati what was per- 
haps the most startling and certainly the most 
pathetic tragedy in the history of the anti- 



FIRST LEGISLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 1 13 

slavery movement. On Sunday niglit, tlie 27th 
of January, 1856, Margaret Garner and her lius- 
band, Robert, with their four young children, 
all slaves of a man named Gaines, living in 
Boone County, Kentucky, escaped from the 
plantation of their master, reached the Ohio 
River early Monday morning, crossed it on the 
ice, and found shelter in the house of a colored 
man in Cincinnati. Gaines pursued them, and, 
finding where they were hidden, obtained a 
warrant from a United States Commissioner, 
and, accompanied by a deputy marshal and his 
assistants, went to the colored man's house on 
his hateful errand. The fugitives had barri- 
caded their place of refuge as well as the 
means at their command would permit; but, 
though they fought bravely, they were soon 
overpowered. The window and door were 
broken in, the assailants entered, and the slaves 
were at their mercy. When Margaret saw that 
she and Robert could make no further resistance, 
she promptly decided to destroy herself and 
her children rather than be returned to slavery. 
Seizing a knife, she killed a beautiful daughter 
— the child that she loved best, and the one 
which perhaps unhappy experience had taught 
her most needed to be rescued from slavery — 
and was proceeding on her sad and terrible 



1 14 LECTURES AND ESS A Kb. 

work with the rest, when she was seized and 
hurried to jail. At her trial she said little or 
nothing^. Did anything need to be said.-* Was 
it not all quite plain .-^ Neither judge nor law- 
yer, friend nor enemy, asked her why she killed 
her child. The common heart in them all 
taught them why. She had never heard of 
Patrick Henry. No word from him had ever 
reached her across the century. But the same 
human heart which in him uttered that famous 
cry for liberty had taught her to put it in prac- 
tice in presence of a peril more imminent and 
terrible than any which could threaten him. 
Friends who visited her in prison to comfort 
her felt, when they looked upon her face, that 
words were of no avail. Horace Greeley says, 
"She seemed simply stupefied and dumb from 
excess of agony." The anti-slavery lawyers of 
Cincinnati, led by that noble man, John JoUiffe, 
a former partner of Governor Chase, exerted 
themselves to set her at liberty. It was in evi- 
dence that her master had some years before 
voluntarily brought her to Cincinnati in a free 
State, which, according to all the laws of civilized 
communities, should have made her free. But 
the commissioner held that her return to slavery, 
without protest, after having been brought to 
Ohio, placed her once more in the condition of 



FIRST LEG I SLA LIVE EXPERIENCE. 1 1 5 

a slave. The grand jury of Hamilton County 
indicted her for the murder of her child, and an 
effort was made by the proper authorities to 
hold her for trial. But the United States Court 
decided that no matter what crimes a man 
might commit upon the soil of Ohio, he could 
not be made to answer for them to one of our 
criminal tribunals after he had once passed into 
the hands of a United States marshal, under the 
Fugitive Slave Law. At one stage of the pro- 
ceedings. Judge Burgoyne, a brave and upright 
State judge, had issued a writ of Habeas Cor- 
pus to bring Margaret before his court to ascer- 
tain whether she was lawfully held. Whether 
by mistake or otherwise, he addressed the writ 
to the sheriff of the county, an excellent man 
bearing the name of Buckingham, instead of 
the United States marshal — a course not at 
that time authorized by the laws of Ohio. Mr. 
Buckingham, who had a heart for the work, at 
first attempted to obtain the custody of Mar- 
garet, but soon learning that he was not sus- 
tained in this by the law, abandoned his pur- 
pose. Margaret was finally delivered to her 
master, who promised that, on taking her back 
to a slave State, he would hold her jn readiness 
to be returned to Ohio, in case of a requisition 
from the Governor, to answer to the charge of 



1 16 LECTURES A ND ESS A YS. 

murder. He failed to keep his promise, but 
sold her down the river into the far South. A 
single sentence will complete all that is further 
known of the history of Margaret. It was re- 
ported that on her way down the river she 
either fell or jumped overboard with her infant 
child — that she was taken from the water, but 
her child was drowned — that she then ex- 
claimed, "I am thankful that one more of my 
children is forever free." 

This sad affair produced a great effect upon 
public opinion even in the conservative city of 
Cincinnati. Ex- President Hayes, who was prac- 
ticing law in that city at the time, recently told 
me an incident which, in a way that, if rather 
rough, is yet picturesque, illustrates this effect. 
He lived in a street of Southern sympathizers; 
but, as he expressed it, the whole street was 
converted by the tragedy of Margaret Garner. 
The next day after it occurred, a leader among 
his pro-slavery neighbors called at his house, 
and as he met Mr. Hayes, exclaimed witii great 
fervor, "Mr. Hayes, hereafter I am with you. 
From this time forward, I will not onl}^ be a 
Black Republican, but I will be a damned abo- 

The attempt of Margaret Garner to destro}^ 
her children and herself was made on Monday, 



FIRST LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE. 117 

January 28, just three weeks after the opening 
of the General Assembly. The next day the 
Cincinnati papers came with a full account of 
the tragedy. The subject was not broui^ht to 
the attention of the House as an organized 
body, but was the topic of exciting i)riv;ite 
conversation in all parts of the hall. At the 
close of the afternoon session, I returned to my 
lodgings, and was sitting there in meditation on 
the startling news, when there was a knock at 
my door, and Governor Chase entered. He was 
laboring under gi"eat excitement of some kind, 
and appeared to be angry. He broke out 
abruptly, "What are you Republicans doing in 
the House, and what are you doing, Monroe, 
when a mother who is a free woman is com- 
pelled to kill her children on the soil of Ohio to 
save them from slavery, and that because there 
is no efficient law for her protection.?" I did 
not remind him that the delay which had been 
permitted had been in part due to his own 
counsel. I only said I was most anxious to 
have something done as soon as possible. He 
replied, " You ought to introduce a bill into the 
House in the morning, have it carried through 
both Houses under a suspension of the rules, 
and have it become a law before you adjourn 
to-morrow." I remarked that I should be 



1 18 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

delighted to see it done, but he could judge as 
well as I could whether the temper of the 
House was such as to admit of this prompt ac- 
tion. We agreed, however, that the bill should 
be prepared and introduced as soon as possible, 
and had perhaps two or three conferences as to 
the form which it should take. We had before 
us models of similar legislation in the personal 
liberty bills of some Eastern States; but none 
of these seemed quite suited to our circum- 
stances. The bill was finally drafted in a form 
which the situation in Ohio seemed to demand. 
For the principal feature in it — that which 
alone made it effective — I was indebted to 
Governor Chase. It has recently occurred to 
me that he, in turn, was probably indebted, for 
the point which he gave me, to the blunder — 
but a blunder in the right direction — of Judge 
Burgoyne in sending his writ of Habeas Cor- 
pus to the sheriff of the county instead of the 
United States marshal. 

It has been already stated that the great de- 
fect of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1811, was 
that under it the writ was addressed to the of- 
ficer — State or Federal — who had in his custody 
the person said to be unlawfully deprived of 
liberty, and that when this officer was acting 
under the Fugitive Slave Law% he uniformly 



FIRST LEGISLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 1 19 

disobeyed the writ. The effective provision of 
the new bill was that whenever any judge of a 
State court who is about to issue the writ of 
Habeas Corpus for the relief of any person al- 
leged to be unlawfully deprived of liberty by an 
officer, shall become convinced, by affidavit or 
otherwise, that such officer will not obey the 
writ, he shall direct it to the sheriff of the 
county, who shall proceed with the " power of 
the county^'' that is, all the able-bodied citizens 
of the vicinage, and take the person detained ont 
of the custody of the officer detaining him, and 
bring him before the judge issuing the writ. 
This provision was '* adequate to the difficulty." 
It took the victim out of the hands of those who 
had motives for depriving him of liberty, and 
placed him in the hands of those who were dis- 
posed to give him a fair and impartial trial. It 
made the judge which issued the writ the final 
authority, not only as to the correctness of the 
forms under which the man was held, but also 
as to the essential lawfulness of the holding ; 
and it forbade, under severe penalties, the re- 
arrest of any person set at liberty by such a 
judge. Practically it was an efficient local op- 
tion law. It is easy to see that any county like 
Lorain, where the anti-slavery sentiment was 
strong, would furnish a pretty lively company to 



I20 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

be the sheriff's posse. Neither slavery, nor the 
Fugitive Slave Law, nor even the United States 
Courts were named in the bill, but it was never- 
theless a vigorous procedure. The bill had not 
much growl or bark in it, but it had plenty 
of teeth. It was introduced into the House, 
February 6, but did not pass that body until 
the 13th of March. On the ist of April it 
passed the Senate, and on the fifth of that 
month became a law. Nearly all of the Re- 
publicans in both Houses finally voted for it, 
and the names of most of the Democrats were 
recorded against it. 

It will be seen tliat it took longer to get the 
bill through the House than any of us had ex- 
pected. As usually happens in such cases, there 
were questions to be answered, objections to be 
met, difficulties to be overcome. There was 
ignorance to be enlightened, prejudice to be re- 
moved, unfairness to be borne, irritation to be 
allayed. The old Free-soilers of the House 
worked earnestly for the accomplishment of the 
object, and the Governor lent his assistance in 
private conversation with members. A bill of 
five sections was thus carried safely through 
without an amendment. Two }'ears it re- 
mained upon the statute book, affording effective 
protection to personal liberty. At the end of 



FIRST LEG/SLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 121 

that time, the Democrats returned to power, 
and repealed it. Two years later still, the Re- 
publicans regained control of the State, and 
would have restored the law, but that the war 
was now at hand, promising remedies for our 
evils more thorough and complete than any we 
had previously dared to propose. 

While the new Habeas Corpus Act was 
pending in the House, I had further studied the 
condition of the juvenile offenders of the State. 
I found that they already existed in considera- 
ble numbers. A mere statement of the dispo- 
sition made of them would seem to have been 
all the argument that was needed to secure leg- 
islation in their behalf Through mistaken 
compassion for their tender age or for parents 
and other relatives, the larger part of them 
were permitted to go on in criminal courses, 
without punishment or correction of any kind. 
In response to some tearful appeal, prosecu- 
tions were waived, or if not, conviction did not 
follow. A smaller number were confined, for 
a time, in the county jail, and a number still 
smaller were sentenced to the Penitentiary. In 
the jail, it was probable, and in the Penitentiary 
it was certain, that they would associate with 
old and hardened offenders. In obedience to a 
resolution of inquiry introduced into the House 



122 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

by myself, the Committee on the Penitentiary 
reported that, in the winter of 1856, there were 
twenty-five juvenile convicts in our State prison 
ranging from twelve to seventeen years of age. 
As the first step in the needed reform, I pre- 
pared, wi'h the assistance of Judge Thrall of 
Columbus, who had had experience in matters 
of this kind at the East, a bill the object of 
which was to establish a school in which juve- 
nile criminals and other incorrigible youth 
should be taught the common branches of edu- 
cation, should learn useful trades, and should be 
subjected to a system of strict but not unkind re- 
straint and correction. They were to be well fed, 
clothed, and sheltered, and to be made in all re- 
spects comfortable, duringgood behavior. They 
might have firecrackers on the 4th of July, a tur- 
key for Thanksgiving, a plum pudding at Christ- 
mas, and nuts and apples on New Year's. But 
they were to be required to study and to work 
the proper number of hours, to observe all whole- 
some rules, and when obstinately disobedient, 
they might be shut up on bread and water, or 
receive a good family whipping. My bill pro- 
posed to accomplish all this by the erection of 
one large building in the city of Columbus, as 
in the case of other public institutions. But on 
a comparison of views with my fellovz-members, 



FIRST LEGISLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 123 

this idea was gradually superseded, in iny own 
mind as well as in the ininds of others, by that 
of a large farm with numerous cottages scat- 
tered over it. The latter plan was also the 
more acceptable one to the friends of retrench- 
ment, who weie numerous in the House. They 
strongly opposed making a heavy appropriation 
the first year, preferring to wait until they 
should have a better understanding of the sys- 
tem to be adopted and the results to be 
achieved. It was partly in compliance with 
their wishes, for I needed their help, that the 
bill finally assumed the modest form of appro- 
priating a small sum to pay the salaries and ex- 
penses of three commissioners, whose duty it 
should be to visit reform schools ah'eady estab- 
lished, and study their system, and methods, 
and the construction of their buildings; to em- 
ploy an architect and prepare plans for build- 
ings; to make inquiry for a suitable site for the 
school; to receive proposals for donations of 
money and lands, and to make full report of 
these and other matters to the next session of 
the General Assembly within ten days after the 
time of its opening. The bill in this form, with 
several other sections of detail, passed the 
House, March 29, the Senate, April 5, and 
on April 7, became a law. The commissioners 



124 LEC TURES A ND ESS A YS. 

appointed by tlie Governor were, John A. 
Foote of Cleveland, Charles Reinelin of Cin- 
cinnati, and James D. Ladd of New Riciiinond, 
who, for many 3'ears, rendered efficient, valu- 
able, and self-denying service in connection 
with this enterprise. The commissioners duly 
reported the next winter after the passage 
of the bill, recommending the purchase of a 
farm near Lancaster and the erection of build- 
ings upon it; and the General Assembly clieer- 
fully appropriated the money necessary for 
these purposes. It was my privilege from this 
time until 1862, either in the House or Senate, 
to prepare, with the assistance of the com- 
missioners, and to take charge of all bills mak- 
ing appropriations for the maintenance and en- 
largement of this work. In 1886, the farm at 
Lancaster contained 1,210 acres covered with 
numerous buildings. The number of bo) s in 
the school was 575, and the total number of 
inmates from the beginning had been 4,652. 
Some years after the founding of the school 
for boys, it was thought necessary to establish 
one for girls, which was done at White Sulphur 
Springs, near Delaware. The average number 
here has been 285, and the total number from 
the beginning 934. Recently a second boys' 
school has been established at Toledo, where 



FIRST LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE. 125 

the average number of ininates has been 160, 
and the total number 864. 

My duty to the common schools of the State 
was to be discharged by maintaining a master- 
ly inactivity. To protect the school law against 
hostile amendments was the thing to be done. 
My position as chairman of the standing Com- 
mittee on Common Schools aided in the accom- 
plisiimtnt of this object. Numerous petitions 
asking for injurious amendments to the law, and 
especially for a dangerous limitation of the 
power of taxation under it, were referred to the 
committee. With these came bills which had 
been introduced into the House to secure this 
end. Both bills and petitions were duly con- 
sidered in committee, carefully filed, and 
tied up in neat packages with red tape. Some 
impatience was manifested at the slow progress 
of the committee, and a suspicion was expressed 
that we were disposed to defer action until it 
should be too late to legislate upon the subject. 
At length, near the close of the session, the 
committee made a report accompanied by a bill. 
The bill proposed such amendments to the law 
as would not impair its efficiency, and the re- 
port contained an argument, prepared with 
some care, against an}' radical change in the 
school system of the State. This view of the 



126 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

question, if not adopted, was at least acquiesced 
in, by the House, and the disposition to amend 
the school law in any way that would diminish 
its usefulness to the youth of the commonwealth, 
gradually disappeared from the Le^^islature. 

One more of the obligations which 1 had as- 
sumed, I tried to discharge during the second 
session of this General Assembly, by introduc- 
ing an amendment to the Constitution to strike 
the word "white" from the paragraph relating 
to suffrage. I delivered a carefully prepared 
speech on the subject, which I believe hael the 
merit, if you choose to consider it such, of be- 
ing the first speech ever made in the Ohio Leg- 
islature on that side of the question. There 
were perhaps twenty-five Republicans in the 
House who would have voted with me in favor 
of this amendment, and it had been my inten- 
tion to demand the yeas and nays upon its 
passage, and put everybody upon the record. 
As the time approached, however, to do this, 
earnest representations were made to me by 
Republican members that it would do no good 
to call up the amendment for a final vote — that 
I knew as well as they did that it could not 
pass — that to insist upon a vote now would 
divide the party and produce bitter feeling — 
that it would commit against the amendment 



F/RS T LEG I SLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 1 27 

some candid men who were rather friendly to it, 
but had not yet fully made up their minds— 
that it would injure the prospects of some young 
members whose districts were so divided in 
opinion, that for them to vote either way would 
be political ruin — that to push the issue further 
would drive the conservatives from our party, 
and give the next election to the Democrats — 
in fine, that public opinion was not ripe for ne- 
gro suffrage, and that I must have the grace to 
wait. These arguments do not sound very sat- 
isfactory. They were not altogether to my 
taste at the time. But they are very familiar 
to a man who has acted with any party nu- 
merous enough to control legislative bodies. 
In a free country there seems to be only this 
alternative: You may have a party sound to 
the last man upon the desired reform but so 
few in numbers that it is difficult to pick them 
out of the election returns, or, you may have a 
party strong enough to control the state or even 
the nation but prone, as regards the advanced 
thought, to hesitate, to compromise, to defer. 
What we want, of course, is a party both per- 
fectly pure and overwhelmingly strong. Un- 
fortunately neither the history of our own coun- 
try nor that of England gives us an example of 
any such party. The arguments against a vote 



128 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

on my amendment did not seem very conclu- 
sive. But on reflection, whetiier wisely or un- 
wisely, 1 decided not to demand the final vote. 
When 1 reached home I was severely criticised, 
both tor the amendment in itself as being nar- 
row and illiberal, and also for the manner in 
which 1 had dropped it. 

The matters thus presented were the princi- 
pal part of my work in my first legislative ex- 
perience. Doubtless I did some other things. 
I was a member of the standing Committee on 
the Penitentiary, which had investigations to 
conduct and reforms to institute. I was made 
chairman of the select committee to revise the 
rules of the House, on the principle, I suppose, 
that as I knew nothing about rules, it was time 
I learned something. The Senator from this 
district, Mr. Herman Canfield of Medina, was 
the author of the bill to establish an asylum for 
imbecile youth. He got this bill through the 
Senate in the winter of 1857, and asked me to 
look after its passage in the House. I was glad 
to do what I could for so worthy an object. 

Many members of this General Assembly did 
good work — some of them more of it than I 
did. Mr. Alfred Kelley, of Columbus, who was 
known to us as the father of the canal system 
of the State, carried through several useful bills 



FIRST LEG I SLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 129 

relating to taxation, finance, banking and cur- 
rency. Senator Brown, of Portage County, in- 
troduced a bill to prevent slaveholding in Ohio; 
Senator Hawley, of Lawrence, a bill to punish 
kidnapping; Senator Guthrie, of Morgan, a bill 
to prohibit the confinement of fugitive slaves in 
our jails. All these bills became laws. An ex- 
cellent law was passed, copied I believe from 
that of Massachusetts, reorganizing the benevo- 
lent institutions of the State. This was intro- 
duced and carried through by Representative 
Bray ton, of Cuyahoga. 

Among the many other able and influential 
members of this Legislature, might be men- 
tioned Representatives George Mygatt of Cuy- 
ahoga, Darius Cadwell of Ashtabula, Ralph 
Plumb of Trumbull, Cyrus Mendenhall of Jef- 
ferson, George M. Parsons of Franklin, Alfred 
Yaple of Ross, and William M. Corry of 
Hamilton; and Senators Lester Taylor of 
Geauga, Hiram Griswold of Cuyahoga, Ralph 
P. Buckland of Sandusky, Robert C. Kirk of 
Knox, John T. Brazee of Fairfield, and Stan- 
ley Matthews of Hamilton. Sev^eral of these 
gentlemen afterwards achieved distinguished 
judicial position in the courts of the State or 
nation, or took a prominent place in one or the 
other of the two Houses of Congress. 



1 30 LECJ URES A ND ESS A YS. 

As regards my own work in this General 
Assembly, I had the feeling, at its close, that I 
had made a fairly good record, and I looked 
forward to the approval of my constituents. 
Their reception of me when I reached home, 
was, on the whole, not unfavorable ; but to this 
there were some exceptions so marked as to 
make my life for some months anything but 
dull and uninteresting. But if I should ever 
give you an account of this, it must be on some 
future occasion. 



MY FIRST LEGISLATIVE 
EXPERIENCE* 

II. 

RECEPTION BY THE PEOPLE. 

A THURSDAY LECTURE. 

Four years since, I gave you some account, 
in this place, of my first legislative experience 
— of the state of feeling and opinion and the 
condition and aims of parties in the first Re- 
publican General Assembly of Ohio — of some 
bills which I introduced into that body and of 
the degree of success which attended them. 
There was a bill so to amend the Habeas Cor- 
pus Act as to protect the personal liberty of 
our citizens against the aggressions of the slave 
power, and a bill for the establishment of Re- 
form Schools — both of which became laws. 
There was a bill to submit to the people an 
amendment to the State Constitution striking 
the word '* white" from the paragraph relating 
to the right of suffrage, which failed to pass. 



132 LECTURES' AND ESS A YS. 

There was also a successful effort to prevent injur- 
ious amendments to an improved school law 
which had lately gone into effect. 

But there may said to be two sides to a 
man's legislative experience: One of these is 
the work which he does, or attempts to do; the 
other is the manner in which it is received by 
the people. There is the standpoint of the 
representative and the standpoint of his con- 
stituents. The former of these topics was pre- 
sented in my last address; the latter is the sub- 
ject for the present occasion. The discussion 
of it may not be wholly without interest, if it 
shall give, to some extent, a picture of the 
time, as it was, thirty-seven years ago. 

I mentioned, in my first address, that when 
I returned to my constituents, at the close of 
the General Assembly, the reception which 
they gave me was, on the whole, not unfavor- 
ble; but that there were some exceptions to 
this so marked as to relieve my life, for some 
time, from all feeling of monotony. I bore up 
stoutly in all cases where my work was merely 
foreotten or igrnored. An honest farmer from 
the rural districts would sometimes remark, 
when I met him, that he had not seen me on 
the street for some time past, and would ask 
whether I had not been out of town. This 



FIRST LEG I SLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 133 

was a little trying, but I could account for it 
on the ground of the remoteness of his home 
from the centers of intelligence. But sharp, 
and as it seemed to me unjust, criticism was 
harder to bear. Those who were satisfied with 
my course were more numerous than those who 
were not; but the latter were more aggressive, 
and had more to say. 

The first severe criticism of my legislative 
acts of which I heard, arose from a vote which 
I gave in favor of what was known as the Cov- 
ington and Cincinnati bridge bill. The circum- 
stances of the case were the following: — In 
1846, the Legislature of Kentucky gave a char- 
ter to the Covington and Cincinnati Bridge 
Company, which was organized for the purpose 
of constructing a bridge between those two 
towns across the Ohio River. This charter was 
granted on the condition that the company 
shoulci be held responsible for all fugitive slaves 
that should escape across the bridge. It was 
necessary that the charter should be confirmed 
by the Legislature of Ohio; and this was done 
without difficulty in the Session of 1849, when 
the Democrats were in power. The privileges 
of the bridge company had now become a 
vested right in accordance with principles es- 
tablished by the decisions of the highest courts. 



134 LECTURES A ND ESS A YS. 

In the Legislature of 1856, to which I had been 
elected, no one contended that we had any 
right to repeal the charter, however distasteful 
it might be to us; and had we passed an act to 
do this, the Supreme Court would no doubt 
have pronounced it unconstitutional. That the 
navigation of the Ohio River might not be im- 
peded, the original charter had provided that 
the bridge should not have less than a certain 
span and rise. It was subsequently discovered, 
however, that these might be considerably 
diminished without interfering with the com- 
merce of the river. Hence, in the Session of 
1856, the company petitioned for the passage 
of a bill which should so amend their charter 
that the bridge might be built of less span and 
rise than what had been originally required, and 
thus save a large amount of money. Some of 
the radical Free-soilers promptly said that they 
would never vote for the bill — that they would 
not aid in granting favors to any company 
which endorsed the false and barbarous claim 
of the master by contracting to pay for his 
escaped slaves. In the phrase of the day, they 
declared that the bridge was a ** pro-slavery " 
bridge, and that a vote to shorten it or to 
diminish its height or reduce the expenditure 
for it was a ** pro-slavery " vote. I felt compelled 



FIRST LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE. 135 

to take a different view of the matter. To 
me it seemed plain that, inasmuch as it was 
not possible, under the law, to repeal the char- 
ter or to take the obnoxious element out of it, 
the only question which I could affect by my 
vote was the question whether the company 
should be compelled to waste fifty or a hundred 
thousand dollars — to spend so much more than 
there was any need of — to put that amount into 
bridge structure which nobody wanted. I decided 
therefore to vote for the bill. I said. It is not a 
question of pro-slavery or anti-slavery. It is 
merely a question whether we shall compel men 
to throw away good money. To say that they 
shall do so is not so much high principle as a want 
of common kindness, not to say ofcommon sense. 
This decision cost me some tribulation among 
a portion of my fellow-members. I was charged 
with having sacrificed principle to policy, and 
it was intimated that I had mistaken my call- 
ing, if I thought myself fitted to be an anti- 
slavery leader. Well, they may have been 
right about the matter; but after the lapse of 
thirty-seven years, I am unable to take any dif- 
ferent view of the case from what I then did. 

My trials in connection with this question 
might have been confined to the Legislature, 
had it not been for that great enlightener and 



1 36 LEC TURKS A ND ESS A YS. 

civilizer, the press. Mr. Josiah A. Harris, one of 
the editors of the "Cleveland Herald," was pass- 
ing the winter in Columbus, as a correspondent 
of that paper. He was my good friend, but was 
strongly opposed to the Covington and Cincin- 
nati bridge bill. Before the vote was taken, he 
kindly came to my seat, and said that he in- 
tended to severely censure in the "Herald" all 
Republicans who should vote for this bill — that 
he did not wish to attack me, and hence had 
given me this timely notice, so that I could with- 
hold my support from the measure.. I told him 
that I should greatly regret being the object of 
his censure, but that I really thought the bill 
both innocent and useful. Besides, I was fully 
committed to it before the House, and could not 
now abandon it. I voted for the bill, and he 
kept his word. The promised attack appeared. 
Two or three years since, being one day in the 
city of Cleveland, it occurred to me that I would 
try to find, and once more read, this old attack. 
To that end, I climbed the long steep staircase 
of the old Savings Bank Building on my way 
to the Museum of the Western Reserve His- 
torical Society, which perhaps contains the only 
nearly complete file of the "Cleveland Herald" 
now in existence, from its beginning in 1819 
down to the time, a few years since, when it 



FIRST LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE. 137 

ceased to be published. There, safe and scMind, 
in one of the numbers near the close of March, 
1856, I found the Columbus letter of Mr. Har- 
ris in which my vote was criticised. It was 
quite a grief to me when it first appeared, but 
the day when my search was rewarded by a re- 
perusal of it, I suppose I was the only human 
being living in the world who remembered that 
such an article had ever been published. You 
can readily understand that an article like this 
printed in a paper of general circulation in Lorain 
County and in Oberlin, among a people justly 
sensitive to anything relating to slavery, would 
bring upon me much criticism; and such was the 
fact. But I never made any public defense of 
my vote. It was one of the cases in which 
people cannot be reasoned with. 

A friend of mine who had also voted for the 
bill, told me that he had defended himself by 
saying that the only question before the House 
was whether the bridge should be a long one 
or a short one — that it was a doctrine of his 
that a runaway negro could get across a short 
bridge quicker than he could get across a long 
one, and hence he had voted to shorten the 
bridge. But I suppose that even this reason- 
ing was not satisfactory. 

I have mentioned this issue of the bridge not 



138 LECTURE'S AND ESSA YS. 

because it is one of great importance in itself, 
but because it is a good type of a large class 
of questions which are constantly arising when 
reforms are under discussion — questions about 
which men equally honest but of different tem- 
perament, education, and philosophy, are con- 
stantly dividing. There is no help for it. Such 
differences will always exist, and in regard to 
them, if anywhere, there is room for the largest 
charity. In such cases, it is simply a ques- 
tion of judgment as to which of two courses, 
under the circumstances, will best conduce to 
valued ends. But it is difficult to have it so re- 
garded. The man who votes against the bridge 
is always tempted to think that he is the only 
man that has any principle; and the man who 
votes for it that he is the only man that has 
any fairness and candor. 

But perhaps the severest censure of which I 
was the object, was directed against the legisla- 
tion which I had attempted in regard to slavery 
and the colored people, or, to use the current 
phrase, the effort which I had made for " the 
cause of freedom." This censure came from a 
classof true men, still, atthat time, found, in small 
numbers, in most townships of Lorain County, 
who had been members of the old Liberty party, 
but had not approved of the Free-Soil party of 



FIRST LEG I SLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 139 

1848, nor its successcM's tlie Free Democracy of 
1852, and the Republican party of 1856. They 
were dissatisfied with me because I was a Repub- 
lican, and also because tliey had expected me, as 
an old abolitionist, to take more radical around 
in the Legislature. A majority of the Liberty 
party united with the Free-Soil party, but these 
men, who, as a class, were among the most 
self-denying workers that the cause had had, re- 
fused to follow their old associates into the new 
organization. They declared that it was not a 
continuation nor even the .legitimate successor 
of the Liberty party. The frankness of speech 
by which they had always been characterized 
did not fail them now. They charged that the 
Free-Soil movement of 1848 was a deliberate 
sacrifice of principle for the sake of numbers 
and of power. The Liberty party, they said, had 
made principle paramount, and had been con- 
tent with such following as could be obtained 
consistently with this. The Free-Soil party 
was willing to surrender so much of principle as 
was necessary to secure the accession to its 
ranks of the New York Barnburners, other Free- 
Soil Democrats, and the Free-Soil Whigs. It 
meant to carry as much principle as it conven- 
iently could, but it did not intend to be over- 
loaded. Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, the accomplished 



I40 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

editor of the " National Era," referring to the Buf- 
falo platform says: — The resolutions "embrace 
all the truth necessary to be presented and urged 
in this present crisis." Mr. William Goodell, 
one of the noblest of the anti-slavery reformers, 
states that more than a year before the conven- 
tion of 1848 was held, unequivocal indications 
had already appeared "of the speedy absorp- 
tion of the Liberty party in some other organi- 
zation holding a receding instead of an ad- 
vanced position in respect to slavery." He 
plainly intimates that the nomination of Hale 
and King in 1847, ostensibly in the interest of 
the Liberty party, was made, not in good faith, 
but through the efforts of interested leaders 
and contrary to the appeals of the more earn- 
est men, to amuse and hold Liberty men for a 
time, until they could be transferred to a new 
party with lower aims. Gentlemen who were 
active in the nomination of Mr. Hale, were soon 
found uniting with men of other political par- 
ties in calling, upon the simple basis of resist- 
ance to slavery extension, a convention to be 
held at Buffalo, where Mr. Hale was super- 
seded by Mr. Van Buren. 

The feeling of distrust with which Gerrit 
Smith, Mr. Goodell, and their friends regarded 
the new party, was strengthened by the platform 



FIRST LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE. 141 

adopted by the Buffalo Convention, when 
it met. In their judgment, that platform of- 
fered to the country a party defensive rather 
than aggressive, and hence a party disqualified 
to lead in the contest with the slaveholdinp- 
power. The National Liberty Convention, 
which nominated Birney and Morris in 1843, 
had not only declared itself to be unalterably 
opposed to any increase of slave territory and 
to the admission of any new slave State — it had 
not only demanded the absolute and unqualified 
divorce of the General Government from slavery, 
but it gave numerous specifications of what it 
believed to be both constitutional and obliga- 
tory methods of attacking slavery. It passed 
resolutions in favor of abolishing slavery in the 
District of Columbia and in all national terri- 
tory, and of abolishing the coastwise slave trade. 
It declared that the clause of the Constitution 
in regard to the return of fugitives, as common- 
ly interpreted, was a nullity, because contrary 
to natural right — that the Government had no 
right to use its prerogative of diplomacy and 
the treaty-making power in the interest of slave- 
ry — that the power given to Congress by the 
Constitution to call out the militia to suppress 
insurrection, does not make it the duty of the 
Government to maintain slavery by force — in a 



142 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

word, that the powers of the Government should 
always be wielded for freedom, never against it, 
and that slavery should be left isolated, quaran- 
tined, hemmed in, and dependent wholly for 
existence upon the local law. The platform 
further declared it to be the duty of the free 
States to enact laws making it a penal offense 
for their citizens to engage in the business of 
returning fugitive slaves. Now the doctrines 
of this platform were strictly within the limits 
of power conferred by the Constitution, but 
they were aggressive — they meant the destruc- 
tion of slavery — they were drawn up by men 
who had no wish to get office, or get their party 
into power, or enlarge their numbers by drop- 
ping any cherished principle. 

But when the reformers turned from this plat- 
form to that of the Free-Soil Convention of 
1848, they discovered a marked contrast. The 
Buffalo platform did indeed announce in unmis- 
takable terms, and with a kind of rhetorical 
alacrity, its hostility to any further extension ot 
slavery. Its battle-cry in the campaign was, 
*' No more Slave states — no more slave territo- 
ry." It also declared that the Government 
should '' relieve itself from all responsibility for 
the existence or continuance of slavery," wher- 
ever it possessed constitutional authority to 



FIRST LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE. 143 

legislate on that subject. But it did not name 
any locality where the Government possessed 
such constitutional authority. It did not state 
that there zvas any such locality. If there was 
any portion of territory where the Government 
had power to legislate upon slavery, there it 
ought to relieve itself of all responsibility for 
it. The question whether there was any such 
territory, appears to have been left for each 
member of the party to decide for himself. 
The framers of this platform avoided the details 
which gave meaning and force to the Liberty 
platform of 1843, but which would have pro- 
duced sharp divisions in the Convention at 
Buffalo. 

This interpretation of the spirit of the Free- 
Soil platform — an interpretation commonly put 
upon it by the more radical anti-slavery men — 
was confirmed by the candidate of the new 
party, Martin Van Buren, in his letter of accept- 
ance. He comimended the platform for having, 
in his opinion, followed the policy of the fath- 
ers, in showing, to use his own words, '*a spirit 
of considerate forbearance towards the institu- 
tion in localities where it was placed under the 
control of Congress." He spoke with evident 
satisfaction of the fact that the sixth resolution 
which made it the duty of the Government to 



144 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

relieve itself of all responsibility for slavery, 
employed, as be puts it, "a generality of ex- 
pression" which had "not been usual" among 
"the friends of immediate action." He added, 
in substance, that he thought he saw in "the 
guarded language of the resolution" evidence 
of differences of opinion in the Convention, 
"and of an enlightened and truly patriotic re- 
solve" not to introduce into the platform any- 
thing which would conflict with these differ- 
ences. It may be urged that Mr. Van Buren 
put too conservative an estimate upon the plat- 
form. But Mr. Goodell well says, " It is not 
known that leading members of the Convention 
that nominated Mr. Van Buren, ever com- 
plained that he had misunderstood their po- 
sition." 

But the general political character of the can- 
didate of the Buffalo Convention, as well as its 
platform, showed that the policy of the new 
movement was greatly changed from that of 
the Liberty party. Mr. Van Buren was nom- 
inated August lO, 1848. In a letter dated the 
twentieth of the previous June, and read before 
the Utica Convention, he had stated that it 
was a source of consolation to him that, when 
President of the United States, he was deter- 
mined that no effort on his part should be 



FIRST LEGISLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 145 

wanting to sustain what were known as the Com- 
promises of the Constitution on the subject of 
slavery. That this compliment paid by Mr. 
Van Buren to himself was merited, is evident 
from expressions of approval which he received 
from leading slaveholders who were considered 
good judges of the loyalty of their followers. 
The men who nominated Mr. Van Buren at 
Buffalo had been in the habit of speaking of 
him as "a Northern man with Southern princi- 
ples." Henry Wilson, himself a supporter of 
Mr. Van Buren, says, "Could they have fore- 
seen his subsequent course they might have 
hesitated. But they were prepared to forgive 
and forget the past and hope much for the fu- 
ture." What Mr. Van Buren's subsequent 
course was is well known. After his brief co- 
quetting with the Free-Soil movement, he re- 
turned to the bosom of the Hunker Democ- 
racy and aided in the election of its candidates. 
A considerable number of the old Liberty 
men refused to join a party with such a plat- 
form and such a candidate. They failed to see 
in its banners, with their strange devices, the 
standards which they had sworn to follow in 
battle. It had indeed declared that Congress 
had "no more power to make a slave than to 
make a king." But could it have named no 



146 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

spot where Congress had power to unmake a 
slave? Must the clanking of fetters still be 
heard under the windows of the Capitol ? Must 
companies of manacled slaves still move in sad 
procession near the National Court of Justice 
and past the doors of Christian churches in the 
city of Washington? Must the outcry of the 
auction block still be heard but a few squares 
away from that Hall where patriotic orators 
were wont to set forth to admiring Congress- 
men the glories of this land of freedom? Why 
was there this mysterious shrinking from the 
assertion of the power to emancipate? Here 
a blow might have been struck that slavehold- 
ers would have felt — that would have shaken 
the whole land, would have awakened a sym- 
pathetic response from millions of freemen, and 
would have been the beginning of the end. 
Why should the Government, in the language 
of Martin Van Buren, exhibit "a spirit of con- 
siderate forbearance towards the institution in 
localities where it was placed under the control 
of Congress " ? One would have thought those 
would have been just the localities in which to 
destroy it. The Liberty men I have described 
felt that they could not sustain a party which 
had exhibited such weakness on so vital a ques- 
tion. They did not regard it as their party. 



FIRST LEGISLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. i\7 

In this they were abundantly sustained by many 
men like Dr. Bailey, who had left the Liberty 
party for that of the Free-soilers. In the " Na- 
tional Era," he rebuked Liberty men who, hav- 
ing gone with him into the new organization, 
claimed that it was the same as the old. Speak- 
ing of the Convention of 1848, he says: — 

"That Convention was neither a 'Liberty,' a 
' Conscience Whig,' nor ' Barnburning' Conven- 
tion. It was an assemblage of the people, 
without regard to party names or attachments, 
for an object cherished by the people above all 
mere party objects. It organized neither a 
' Barnburning,' ' Conscience Whig,' nor ' Lib- 
erty ' party. People assembled for no such pur- 
pose. The vassalage of some minds to party 
names is ridiculous. A Liberty paper in the 
East talks complacently of the Convention 
having adopted the Liberty platform: reorgan- 
ized the Liberty party. We shall expect to hear, 
in other quarters, something about the true 
Whig or the true Democratic platform. Why 
cannot men rise above these small distinctions } " 

The disapproval with which many Liberty 
men regarded the party of 1848 was extended, 
though in somewhat modified form, to the Free 
Democracy of 1852 and the Republicans of 1856. 
Even at a later period, some of them made bitter 



148 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

attacks upon the administration of Abrahann 
Lincoln. They regarded the new party as hav- 
ing been, from the beginning, one of compromise 
for the sake of power, rather than one of prin- 
ciple. 

I may add that when the Free-Soil party 
was formed in 1848, my sympathies were with 
the earnest abolitionists who refused to join it. 
I liked neither the candidate nor the platform. 
I thought those Liberty men were right who 
said that the Free-Soil party was not the one 
to which they had belonged. It did not meet 
my ideal of the party which the times demanded. 
I knew there were thousands of honest anti- 
slavery men in it, but they had been misled. I 
did not vote for Van Buren and Adams. I 
kept aloof from the new party for some time. 
During this interval, with my friend Professor 
Hudson, I voted for such men as we believed 
to be reliable, without any thought of influ- 
encing an election. Each successive year the 
men who voted as we did became fewer and 
fewer. I might have continued voting in the 
straight line of succession to Gerrit Smith and 
William Goodell until this time, had it not come 
clear to me one day, as I was thinking it over, 
that, in a country where suffrage is universal, 
you cannot carry a great national reform without 



FIRST LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE, 149 

votes. Most of the anti-slavery voters had 
gone into the Republican party. Many of them 
found the standards of opinion lower than they 
desired, but they were constantly striving, and 
with a good degree of success, to elevate them. 
I finally decided that my place was with these 
men. If the new party were not moving as 
fast as I could wish, they were, perhaps, mov- 
ing as fast as public opinion would sustain. If 
they were not trying to carry out all the truth 
which I deemed important, they were trying to 
carry out some of it, and what they were try- 
ing to do it seemed probable they would soon 
have strength enough to accomplish. I became 
willing that anti-slavery principles should be 
brought forward one at a time, if, by so doing, 
a party could be secured strong enough to give 
to each successive principle a triumph. I was 
content to accept, first, the doctrine of no more 
slave territory — next the abolition of slavery 
throughout all the national domain — next the 
partial abolition of slavery in the States — next 
its total abolition everywhere, and finally the 
thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments 
— "first the blade, then the ear, and then the 
full corn in the ear." Hungry men might wish 
that the full corn in the ear should be produced 
at once, but the constitution of nature is 



ISO LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

otherwise. It seemed a pity not to be able to do 
all the desired good at once, but there was com- 
pensation for the delay in the increased numer- 
ical strength which the delay secured. I came 
to the conclusion that, in the present condition 
of the world, it would not be practicable to or- 
ganize a party with votes enough to accomplish 
anything, whose average moral tone would not 
be below the just standard. Hence I voted for 
Hale and Julian in 1852, and thenceforward 
acted with the Republican party. How could 
I stay out of the new movement, when, far 
within its ranks, was heard the voice of Whittier, 
who, at first, distrusted the party, but had final- 
ly joined it — the voice of Whittier singing his 
paean of joy of hope of thankfulness, of in- 
spiration, in lines like these: — 

Now, joy and thanks forevermore ! 

The dreary night has wellnigh passed, 
The slumbers of the North are o'er, 

The Giant stands erect at last ! 

More than we hoped in that dark time 

When, faint with watching, few and worn, 
We saw no welcome day-star climb 

The cold gray pathway of the morn ! 
** ****** 
How jeered the scoffing crowd behind, 

How mocked before the tyrant train, 
As, one by one, the true and kind 

Fell fainting in our path of pain ! 



FIRST LEG I SLA LIVE EXPERIENCE. 1 5 1 

They died,^their brave hearts breaking 
slow, — 

But, self-forgetful to the last, 
In words of cheer and bugle blow 

Their breath upon the darkness passed. 

A mighty host, on either hand, 

Stood waiting for the dawn of day 
To crush like reeds our feeble band ; 

The morn has come, — and where are they ? 



Like mist before the growing light. 
The hostile cohorts melt away ; 

Our frowning foemen of the night 
Are brothers at the dawn of day ! 



Sound for the onset ! — Blast on blast ! 

Till Slavery's minions cower and quail ; 
One charge of fire shall drive them fast 

Like chaff before our Northern gale ! 

O prisoners in your house of pain. 

Dumb, toiling millions, bound and sold. 

Look ! stretched o'er Southern vale and plain, 
The Lord's delivering hand behold ! 

Above the tyrant's pride of power. 
His iron gates and guarded wall, 

The bolts which shattered Shinar's tower 
Hang, smoking, for a fiercer fall. 

Awake ! awake ! my Fatherland ! 

It is thy Northern light that shines ; 
This stirring march of Freedom's band 

The storm-song of thy mountain pines. 



152 LECTURES AND ESSA VS. 

Wake, dwellers where the day expires ! 

And hear, in winds that sweep your lakes 
And fan your prairies' roaring fires. 

The signal-call that Freedom makes ! 

This signal-call I obeyed. It was the posi- 
tion which I had thus reached in the Republi- 
can party and the new philosophy which I had 
adopted — that of getting what I could from the 
party at the time, and working and hoping for 
more, which brought upon me the criticism of 
the old Liberty men who had remained faithful 
to the earlier idea. They thought poorly of 
my Habeas Corpus Act. They did not under- 
stand it very well; but this did not much inter- 
fere with or modify the severity of their censure. 
It hurled no defiance at slavery and the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law. It did not even contain the 
words. In their judgment the General Assem- 
bly of Ohio ought to have taken the lead in the 
championship of certain radical constitutional 
doctrines in regard to slavery and in putting 
these doctrines, as far as practicable, into the 
form of law. They felt that the representative 
of Lorain County should have been active in a 
movement of this kind, and that he had not 
done so was a signal failure in duty. These 
worthy men also sharply criticised my not call- 
ing up and demanding the yeas and nays upon 



FIRST LEG I SLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 153 

the bill submitting to a vote of the people an 
amendment to the Constitution striking the 
word "white" from the suffrage clause. They 
contended that every member of the House 
should have been compelled to go upon the 
record on this c]uestion, and that it was a great 
weakness on my part to have listened to the 
request of members to be released from this. 
The criticism of these old abolitionists I felt 
more keenly than that from any other source, 
my sympathy with them had been so strong in 
the past. 

But the liveliest critics which I had on my 
return home after my first General Assembly 
were the Woman Suffragists. They were dis- 
gusted that, as a professed reformer, I should 
have proposed an amendment to the Constitu- 
tion to strike out the word "white" and not 
strike out the word "male." They said, "Will 
you give an ignorant negro the right to vote 
and withhold it from your own mother, wife, 
sister, and daughter.?" — none of whom, how- 
ever, wanted it. They evidently thought worse 
of me than they would have done had I made 
no effort at all to amend the Constitution. But 
they kindly undertook a plan for my conversion, 
which, however, was carefully kept from me 
until it could be carried into effect. About two 



154 LEC UTRES A ND ESS A YS. 

miles east of Oberlin lived a Mr. Porter, who 
was a warm advocate of Woman Suffrage. He 
was never married, but this did not make him 
less disposed to enlarge the powers of woman. 
An appointment was made for him, by his 
friends, to speak on his favorite subject in some 
hall on West College Street on a certain even- 
ing. Just before the meeting was held, my old 
and highly esteemed friend, Ralph Plumb, after- 
wards an able and useful member of Congress 
from Streator, Illinois, called at my study, spoke 
of the coming entertainment, and, saying that 
he believed me to be a man willing to hear 
both sides of the cjuestion, invited me to attend 
the meeting. I innocently consented. When 
I entered the hall, I found a number of middle- 
aged gentlemen and worthy matrons of the 
town already assembled. As I passed to my 
seat, they maintained, externally, the utmost 
seriousness, but you will soon understand what 
must have been the feeling within that was 
hidden under this grave demeanor. Mr. Porter 
had not advanced far with his address before I 
discovered that he was reading a speech of 
mine delivered before the Ohio House of Repre- 
sentatives in favor of striking the word " white " 
from the Constitution, nearly word for word, 
except that he was everywhere substituting the 



FIRST LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE. 155 

word "male" for the word "white," and the 
word "woman" for the words " colored man." 
I had to listen to this for a full hour. There 
was no decent way of escape. The whole 
meeting- had evidently been called on my 
account. Those present were, no doubt, more 
occupied in watching the effect of the address 
upon me than in listening to it for their own 
benefit; and I will confess that I was somewhat 
taken by surprise, myself, to find how plausibly 
the argument sounded, when applied to the 
right of woman to the ballot. At the close of 
the meeting we went quietly home. Mr. Por- 
ter had committed a fearful plagiarism, but I 
never called him to account for it. It was be- 
lieved that, if "Brother Monroe" was at all 
candid, he must be converted by this experi- 
ence. But the expected result did not follow. 
Perhaps the error consisted in assuming that a 
man could remain in a candid state of mind 
when compelled to listen to his own speeches. 
But, wherever the mistake lay, my opinions re- 
mained unchanged. Thereupon followed, in 
private circles, and perhaps in some public 
meetings, sharp denunciations of the Republi- 
can party, and, I fear, of myself also. Their 
mode of reasoning with us was something like 
the following: — 



IS6 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

*'You Republicans have begun, so far as 
your power and influence go, by robbing one- 
half the human race of their natural, funda- 
mental, God-given rights. Upon this rotten 
foundation, you are trying to build up what you 
call a superstructure of reform. It is no re- 
form. Your work is narrow, partial, preju- 
diced, and insincere. It has no principle at the 
bottom of it. It is mere pretense — it is hypoc- 
risy — to profess such concern for tlie rights of 
a small fraction of the human family while ig- 
noring the claims of a much larger portion. 
You talk about destroying slavery, but God will 
never bless, will never use such an instrumen- 
tality as you are to so noble an end. The Bi- 
ble shows — all history shows — that no reform 
has ever been attended with success, unless 
resting on a sound basis of principle." 

These sharp reproofs did not seem, for the 
present, to be joyous but grievous; but they 
were, no doubt, the answer of a good conscience 
to those who administered them, and to Re- 
publicans, and to myself in particular, they were 
at least disciplinary. I remember a Mr. and 
Mrs. Swift, then resident in Oberlin, who were 
specially faithful to me. 

Such were some of the elements of dissatis- 
faction which existed in my district, at the 



FIRST LEG I SLA TIVE EXPERIENCE. 157 

close of my first period of service. In the ag- 
gregate they seemed rather formidable. There 
were those, I suppose, who said that I could 
never be re-nominated. The mass of Republi- 
cans, however, had taken little part in these dis- 
cussions, and it was difficult to say what they 
were thinking. But when the township meet- 
ings were held, the following August, they ap- 
pear to have attended. The critics disappeared, 
and delegates were chosen for the Legisla- 
tive Convention who gave me a unanimous 
re-nomination. 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA IN 
DECEMBER, 1859. 

A THURSDAY LECTURE. 

It must have been on, or very near, Satur- 
day morning, December 17, 1859 — indeed I 
think it was that very morning — that an inci- 
dent occurred in the parlor of my house, then 
on South Professor Street, which has taken its 
place in memory as one of the most pathetic 
experiences of my life. A father and mother, | 
neighbors whom I knew, came to my door and 
asked for an interview. They were Mr. and 
Mrs. John Copeland — people, in part, of 
African blood, of respectable standing in the 
community, and of amiable and Christian de- 
portment. A son of these parents is still fa- 
vorably known ainong us as a business partner 
of Mr. Charles Glenn, the builder. As I re- 
ceived them, I saw that they were in deep dis- 
tress. The mother especially, exhibited such 
intense suffering — suffering so affecting both 
body and mind — that it was a question wheth- 
er she would not sink to the floor, in utter 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. 159 

exhaustion, before the conference could be 
completed. Their story is soon told. A son 
of the family, John A. Copeland, a young man 
about twenty-six years of age, had gone, some 
months before, to Chatham, in Canada, to visit 
a married sister. While there he had met an 
agent of John Brown, who invited him to join 
in the Virginia raid. Enthusiastic for the de- 
liverance of both the races with which he was 
identified from the curse of slavery, and an ar- 
dent admirer of Brown, he accepted the invi- 
tation. With the result of the raid we are all 
acquainted. Brown was executed December 
2, 1859, at Charlestown, Virginia. On the six- 
teenth day of December, came the execution 
of Copeland, at the same place. I have in my 
possession a letter, written by him on that day 
to his parents, brothers, and sisters in Oberlin, 
within two hours probably of the time of his 
ascending the scaffold, which, in its exhibition 
of Christian peace, of a spirit of forgiveness, 
of domestic affection, and of profound calm, will 
not compare unfavorably with any of the last 
utterances of apostles and martyrs. You will 
see that the day of his execution was the one 
immediately preceding that of the visit of his 
parents to me. I have spoken of the extreme 
suffering of Mrs. Copeland. It was noticeable, 



i6o LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

however, that the grief which tortured her did 
not spring mainly from the thought of her son's 
execution. That, comparatively, seemed a tol- 
erable affliction. John Brown had been exe- 
cuted, and so had been many of the great and 
good. The gallows upon which her son per- 
ished seemed irradiated by the goodly fellov/- 
ship in suffering of prophets and reformers. 
This could be borne. The intolerable agony 
was caused by a report, which had come over 
the wires, and which appeared to be well found- 
ed, that the body of her son had been, or soon 
would be, taken to the medical college at Win- 
chester, Virginia, for the purposes of dissection. 
About this she seemed to have a feeling akin 
to superstition. She had lain awake all night, 
turning the painful subject over in every form 
that a morbid imagination could suggest, until 
the torture had become more than brain and 
heart could endure; and unless some diversion 
— some relief — could be furnished, both brain 
and heart, it seemed probable, must give way. 
Under these circumstances, the parents had 
come to me to ask that I would go promptly to 
Winchester, and endeavor to recover the body 
of their son. I did not covet the undertaking, 
and I thought it right to explain to them that: 
it would be likely to result in failure. Great 



] 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA, i6i 

excitement still prevailed in Virginia. Soldiers 
were still marching and counter-marching, mil- 
itary reviews were being held, and that military 
spirit was being awakened which was maintain- 
ed from that time until the close of the war. 
The very presence of a Northern abolitionist in 
Virginia, upon such an errand in such a state 
of public feeling, might be regarded as, in it- 
self, a grave offense. It was true that the body 
of John Brown had been returned to his wid- 
ow; but special influences had been brought to 
bear in that case; and besides, Brown had the 
important advantage that he did not belong to 
the despised race. I did not fail to present 
these points to Mrs. Copeland; but they made 
no impression. She still entreated me to go, 
and I could not refuse her. I suppose I never 
pitied any one so much in my whole life. 

Having decided to undertake the journey, I 
at once made such preparation as I could. 
From Hiram Griswold, a prominent lawyer of 
Cleveland who had acted as Brown's attorney 
during his trial, I obtained a letter of intro- 
duction to Judge Parker of Winchester — the 
Judge who had sentenced both Brown and Cope- 
land. Mr. Copeland, the father, or some friend 
for him, had telegraphed to Henry A. Wise, 
then Governor of Virginia, asking permission 



i62 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

to send some one into the State to obtain the 
body of his son. A telegram came in reply 
which read in substance: — ''You may send a 
man, but he must be a white man." This tel- 
egram I took with me, together with a paper 
from Mr. Copeland authorizing me to act as 
his agent in receiving the body. 

I was now fairly well equipped for my jour- 
ney, except that I had no money for the pay- 
ment of expenses; and my friend Copeland was 
almost as impecunious as I was. In this exi- 
gency, James M. Fitch, who was for many years 
a bookseller and publisher in Oberlin, and 
whose memory is still held in reverence for his 
many good works, brought me one hundred 
dollars which he had somehow obtained in the 
town. I fear he had secured it by solicitation 
from door to door among business men and 
other citizens — a method of raising money 
which even to this day is something more than 
a tradition among us. 

You will say that I now took the first train 
for Winchester. But this will be because you 
are too young to have had any experience of 
those times. In 1859 a man who got together 
a hundred dollars to go East had perhaps 
performed the smaller part of the needed finan- 
ial operation. That was the period of the 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. 163 

state-bank system, or rather of the state-bank 
systems; for there were as many of them as 
there were States that chose to legislate upon 
the subject. The result was that there was an 
endless variety of paper money, of all degrees 
of soundness except the highest. In Ohio, 
besides our own money, we had many kinds 
of bank bills from Michigan, from Indiana, and 
from States farther west. Upon these, even 
when from banks called good, there was a dis- 
count of from ten to thirty per cent when ex- 
changed for coin. On looking over the money 
Avhich I had received, I discovered that it was 
rich in these varieties, and that it was necessary 
to ascertain how much its nominal values rep- 
resented in those which were real; in other 
words, what was the purchasing power of my 
hundred dollars. Fortunately for me, we had at 
that time in Oberlin a business man who was an 
expert in the quality of paper money. He re- 
ceived the latest counterfeit detectors, and the 
latest journals giving the rates of discount, at 
the Eastern money centers, upon all Western 
bank notes. He was our helpful adviser in our 
financial troubles. To him I took my money. 
He went over it with me carefully, and gave 
me all needed information. So far as it seemed 
probable that he could use my Western bills in 



1 64 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

the way of business, he gave me New York and 
other Eastern bills in exchange for them. He 
very much improved the quality of my money — 
not, I fear, without some loss to himself. 

One incident of our interview I have always 
thought unique. Among the bank notes which 
Mr. Fitch had brought me, there was a consider- 
able numberofone-doUarbills. Ofthese perhaps 
twelve or fifteen were on the Northern Bank of 
Kentucky. My friend smiled when he saw 
them. ''These," said he, "are all counterfeit. 
See how distressed the face of old Harry Clay 
looks on these notes. But although they are 
counterfeit, you will have no trouble with them. 
There is such a scarcity of small bills that busi- 
ness men, by common consent, receive them 
and pay them out." 

In regard to the scarcity of small bills 
at that time, I might add, that it was, in 
part, due to the decided stand taken by one 
of the political parties in favor of the use 
of coin. To promote this, they discouraged, 
and sometimes prohibited, through the State 
legislatures, the issuing of small notes, their 
theory being that, as a vacuum would thus be 
produced, and as nature abhors a vacuum, gold 
and silver would flow in to fill it. But gold and 
silver did not flow in, for it turned out that the 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. 165 

vacuum abhorred gold and silver worse than na- 
ture abhorred the vacuum. Then, as always, 
no way was discovered to induce men to use the 
dearest money that could be found to meet their 
obligations. The most patriotic Whig or Dem- 
ocrat would not go to a broker's and buy coin 
at a premium to pay small debts, when, by let- 
ting them run until they were larger, he could 
pay them in depreciated bills of higher denom- 
ination, or, perhaps, could pay them at once, by 
barter. 

I was somewhat startled by my friend's liberal 
views and what he told me of the practice under 
them. It was an anomaly which only the gen- 
eral financial disorder could have produced. I 
have thought this the most remarkable case of 
fiat money of which I have any knowledge. 
Here there was no government behind these bills 
declaring them to be money. The only fiat that 
gave them currency was an understandingtacitly 
reached by business men, and based upon a 
supposed public convenience. Our Populist 
friends would, perhaps, find fresh confirmation 
for their views, in a case like this. 

I left Oberlin for Winchester, Monday, De- 
cember 19, going by way of Wheeling and 
Harper's Ferry over the Baltimore and Ohio 
Railway. Owing to the delay of my train, 



i66 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

caused by heavy snows in the AUeghenies, I did 
not reach Harper's Ferry until afternoon on 
Wednesday. Then I took the Winchester, Po- 
tomac, and Strasburg road, which ran by Charles- 
town and Winchester. As I took my seat in 
the car, I discovered the first evidence of the 
excited condition of the country. When the 
conductor came to receive my ticket, he said, 
*' Excuse me, sir, but it is made my duty to ask 
for the name of every stranger entering the 
State." I gave him my name and it appeared 
to be entirely satisfactory. In one part of the 
car there was a group of ladies and gentlemen 
talking about John Brown. I soon discovered 
that among them was Captain Avis, the jailer 
who had charge of Brown during his imprison- 
ment. I heard him say that Brown had spoken 
of the kindness with which Captain Avis had 
treated him as a reason why he would not at- 
tempt to escape from jail. 

It was near sunset when I reached Winches- 
ter. I went directly to the Taylor House, hav- 
ing been told that that was the best hotel in the 
town. As I entered the clerk's office, I was 
reminded that I must register my name and ad- 
dress. As several rough and rather spirituous 
looking persons were standing about, it occur- 
red to me, that the word Oberlin written upon 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. 167 

the page of the register, for the inspection of 
such people, might produce a degree of excite- 
ment unfavorable to my object in visiting the 
place. Calling to mind the name of the township 
in which Oberlin was situated, I went prompt- 
ly to the clerk's desk, the men dividing to ena- 
ble me to do so, and wrote in a good bold hand, 
''James Monroe, Russia." I withdrew, and the 
crowd went up to examine the record. I left 
them studying upon it. The landlord told me, 
the next day, that when they asked him who 
James Monroe of Russia was, he replied that 
all he knew about it was I was a Russian. I 
have already spoken of Judge Parker as resid- 
ing in Winchester; and having ascertained his 
address, I went at once to his house. I found 
him, presented my letter of introduction from 
Mr. Griswold, and was most courteously re- 
ceived. I told him my story — somewhat as I 
have told it to you — and explained how entire- 
ly my errand was one of humanity — of com- 
passion for an afflicted father and mother. 
Very sincerely, as I believe, he expressed his 
sympathy with my object, his readiness to help 
me in it, and his opinion that it could be accom- 
plished. He invited me to take tea with him- 
self and his family, and proposed that, after tea, 
we should, together, pay a visit to the President 



i68 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

of the Medical College, Dr. McGuire, and 
if it met his approval, should then send for 
other members of the Faculty, and have a 
meeting for consultation in regard to the object 
of my mission. I of course staid to the even- 
ing meal, and the invitation to attend a Faculty 
Meeting seemed so natural that it made me 
feel quite at home. I found Mrs. Parker a very 
agreeable lady, and we had a pleasant social 
occasion around the family table. After tea, 
Judge Parker went with me to Dr. McGuire's. 
On the way I happened to remark that I had 
sometimes thought that John Brown was not 
entirely sane. He repudiated this opinion, say- 
ing that he had observed Brown closely during 
the trial, and was convinced that he had a great 
deal of intelligent malice. The Faculty Meet- 
ing was held, and was entirely satisfactory. So 
far as I could judge, the best feeling existed. It 
was unanimously agreed that the body of Cope- 
land should be delivered to me to be returned to 
the home of his parents. The college undertaker 
was present. He promised that he would work 
a portion of the night, and that by nine o'clock 
on the following morning, my sorrowful freight 
should be decently prepared for delivery at the 
express office. I was cautioned by one of the 
professors not to speak of the object of my 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. 169 

visit at the hotel. I could readily assure them 
that I would not, and, within myself, I thought 
it much more likely that the news would get 
out through some one of the families of those 
who were present than through me. Feeling, 
however, no concern about the matter, I return- 
ed to the public house, and went to bed happy. 
I thought I saw my way clear to take back the 
body of the young soldier of liberty to his sor- 
rowing family to be buried in the soil of Ober- 
lin. I might say here, that I had already men- 
tioned, more than once, that I bore upon my 
person the permission of Governor Wise to 
visit Virginia for the purpose I had in view, and 
I had perhaps exhibited his telegram. But this 
permission could, in any event, have only a 
moral weight, and that proved to be but small 
in Winchester, as the Governor did not appear 
to be popular there. In the morning a colored 
servant entered my room and built a great pine- 
wood fire in the old-fashioned fireplace. I 
thought it remarkable that he at once began 
telling me of his trials and hardships as a slave. 
It was evident that he thought me a Northern 
man, or at least one in sympathy with persons 
in his condition. I took an early breakfast, 
and was impatiently waiting for the hour at 
which I was to meet the undertaker, when a 



I70 LECTURES AND ESSA VS. 

message was brought that some gentlemen 
wished to see me. I received them in the par- 
lor of the hotel. They were a committee of 
students from the college — half a dozen in 
number — who had come to give me their view 
of the situation. A tall, lean, red-haired young 
man from Georgia acted as their chairman. I 
had seen committees of students before, but 
this one seemed rather more excited than any 
which I had previously met. As the chairman 
addressed me standing, I also stood. I cannot 
give an accurate, verbatim report of his speech, 
but I remember the sentiment and the more re- 
markable turns of expression. He spoke in 
substance as follows: — 

" Sah," said he, '' these gentlemen and I have 
been appointed a committee by the medical 
students to explain this matter to you. It is 
evident to us, sah, that you don't understand the 
facts in the case. Sah, this nigger that you are 
trying to get don't belong to the Faculty. He 
isn't theirs to give away. They had no right 
to promise him to you. He belongs to us stu- 
dents, sah. Me and my chums nearly had to 
fight to get him. The Richmond medical 
students came to Charlestown determined to 
have him. I stood over the grave with a re- 
volver in my hand while my chums dug him 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. 171 

up. Now, sah, after risking our lives in this way, 
for the Faculty to attempt to take him from 
us, is mo' 'an we can b'ar. You must see, sah, 
and the Faculty must see, that if you persist in 
trying to carry out the arrangement you have 
made, it will open the do' for all sorts of trou- 
ble. We have been told that Governor Wise 
gave you permission to come into this State 
and get this nigger. Governor Wise, sah, has 
nothing to do with the matter. He has no au- 
thority over the affairs of our college. We re- 
pudiate any interference on his part. Now, 
sah, that the facts are befo' you, w^e trust that 
we can go away with your assurance that you 
will abandon the enterprise on which you came 
to our town. Such an assurance is necessary 
to give quiet to our people." 

I replied to the gentleman from Georgia that 
I was glad to hear from all sides of the ques- 
tion; that the view taken by the students was 
important, and deserved and should have re- 
spectful consideration; but that, as my arrange- 
ments had been made with the approval of 
the Faculty, and I had, as yet, no intimation 
from them that their view of the matter had, in 
any way, been changed, I thought the young 
men would agree with me that the courtesy due 
between gentlemen required that I should not 



172 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

abandon my undertaking without consultation 
with their teachers. I closed, however, by say- 
ing that I would cheerfully promise the com- 
mittee that I would at once give up my plan 
when advised to do so by their professors. The 
chairman of the committee would have been 
glad to have me say, at once, that 1 would do 
nothing further; but I adhered to my purpose. 
The committee then left, without any dis- 
courtesy of language or manner, but as I 
thought with some suppressed feeling. 

I went at once to see Professor Smith, who 
had shown me much sympathy in my object, 
and who was on the point of coming to me. 
He said, "The Faculty would still be willing to 
make an effort to carry out their contract with 
you, but they suppose it to be impracticable." 
He then told me what I had not heard before, 
that during the night the students had broken 
into the dissecting rooms of the college, had 
removed the body of Copeland, and hidden it, 
it was reported, at some place in the country. 
He added that if, under these circumstances, we 
were to persist in an effort to recover the body, 
the whole country about us would soon be in a 
state of excitement. He thought it the wiser 
course, therefore, that my object should be 
given up. I believed he was right, and decided 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. 173 

to act accordingly. The result was a great dis- 
appointment to me; but it seemed to be inevi- . 
table. 

In thus recording my decision to abandon 
further effort, it is a satisfaction to add that 
time has made it more and more evident that 
Copeland was abundantly worthy of all the in- 
terest which we took in his case. Recently the 
Virginia officials who were connected with his 
trial, conviction and execution, have been pub- 
lishing the favorable impression he made upon 
them. Mr. Andrew Hunter, who was the State 
prosecutor at the trial, in communications given 
to the press a few years since, says: "Copeland 
was the cleverest of all the prisoners. He had 
been educated at Oberlin. He was the son of 
a free negro, and behaved better than any man 
among them. If I had had the power and 
could have concluded to pardon any, he was 
the man I would have picked out. ^ -f. ^ 
He behaved with as much firmness as any of 
them, and with far more dignity." Judge 
Parker, in an interview published in the St. 
Louis "Globe Democrat" in 1888, says: "Cope- 
land was the prisoner who impressed me best. 
He was a free negro. He had been educated, 
and there was a dignity about him that I could 
not help liking. He was always manly." 



174 LEC TURKS A ND ESS A YS. 

I was now ready to set my face towards 
home; but there was no train from Winchester 
back to Harper's Ferry until the following 
morning. By taking a carriage, however, in 
the afternoon, across the country to Martins- 
burg, 1 could catch the evening train on the 
Baltimore and Ohio road for Wheeling. My 
arrangements were made, therefore, to do this. 
Professor Smith advised me not to go to a hotel 
when I should reach Martinsburg. A general 
military review of all the soldiers who were 
present at John Brown's execution, and others 
also, was in progress that day in Martinsburg, 
and there would be many violent and half- 
drunken men about the public houses, whom it 1 
would be well for me to avoid. He offered to j| 
give me a letter of introduction to 'Squire Con- 
rad, a friend of his, a lawyer of high character 
and standing in that town, and told me to drive 
directly to his house, and remain there until the 
hour for the train. This letter I thankfully 
accepted. As I had still two or three hours to 
wait for dinner, a young member of the Fac- 
ulty — I think an associate professor — took me 
to the college and showed me its various apart- 
ments and appliances for instruction. We 
visited the dissecting rooms. The body of 
Copeland was not there, but I was startled to 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. 175 

find the body of another Oberlin neighbor whom 
I had often met upon our streets, a colored man 
named Shields Greene. I had indeed known 
that he also had been executed at Charlestown, 
as one of John Brown's associates, but my warm 
interest in another object had banished the 
thought of him from my mind. It was a sad 
sight. I was sorry I had come to the building; 
and yet who was I, that I should be spared a 
view of what my fellow-creatures had to suffer? 
A fine, athletic figure, he was lying on his 
back — the unclosed, wistful eyes staring wildly 
upward, as if seeking, in a better world, for some 
solution of the dark problems of horror and 
oppression so hard to be explained in this. 

After dinner and after the payment of bills, 
including one of considerable amount from the 
undertaker, who had made progress, to a cer- 
tain extent, with his preparations, I was furnished 
by my landlord with a comfortable carriage and 
a colored driver, to takemeto Martinsburg. The 
drive of perhaps twenty miles was spirited and 
enjoyable. It was a fine, clear December day. 
The sunshine was golden; there was no snow 
upon the ground, and the temperature was 
mild. The country, agreeably undulating, 
diversified with hill and valley, woodland and 
meadow, and watered by spring- fed streams, 



176 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

well deserved the epithet of ''beautiful," be- 
stowed upon it by John Brown when on his 
way to the scaffold on a like golden day of the 
same December. This region was a part of ■ 
that beautiful valley of the Shenandoah — the 
valley of Virginia we called it during the war — 
which so fearfully expiated its share in the 
crime of slavery, by the desolation which the 
constant march of successive armies, Union 
and Confederate, left upon its fields. The sol- 
diers of Sheridan, Banks, and Milroy, on the 
one side, and those of Joseph E. Johnston, 
Stonewall Jackson, and Early, on the other, 
advanced or retreated over these lands. An 
intelligent observer once said to me, "There 
wasn't a fence rail left in the valley of Virginia 
after the war." General Sheridan, having laid 
it waste, as a military necessity, wrote to Wash- 
ington that '*a crow could not find rations" 
where he had been. Judge Parker, in a paper 
already quoted, says: — "I have no doubt it is 
true that Winchester changed hands, as is 
claimed, more than eighty times, during the war. 
These were real occupations, not merely the en- 
trance and exit of scouting parties." Along 
the same road over which I was now passing. 
General Banks, two or three years later, marched 
from Winchester to Martinsburg with a portion 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. 177 

of the fifth corps of the army of the Potomac. 
It was for a decision reached by him during this 
march, that he was charged with violating the 
Constitution of the United States. It was 
early in the war, and many people in the North 
were still sensitive about fine constitutional 
points. A slave woman came from one of the 
farms along his route, and climbed upon one of 
his gun carriages, intending to ride out of the 
country with " Massa Linkum's army." What 
was the offense which General Banks com- 
mitted.^ He let her ride. Until a few weeks 
since, I had been in doubt as to what became 
of the Winchester Medical College during the 
war. Recently, I wrote to the postmaster of 
that town, making inquiry upon the subject. 
In reply, I received a letter from Dr. Conrad, a 
gentleman of high standing in Winchester, which 
I here quote, and which will explain itself: — 

Winchester, Va., Sept. 7, 1894. 
James Monroe, 

Dear Sir: — The postmaster asked me, as the oldest 
living graduate of the old Winchester Medical College, 
to answer your note. The college was burnt by General 
Banks' army in May, 1862. He himself regretted it, but 
his New England doctors and chaplains did it— applied 
the torch with their own hands. They proclaimed that 
theirs was a campaign of education. In this manner did 
that thorough old school of medicine become obliterated. 
The ground, belonging to the State, was sold, and is now 



178 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

built upon. Only one of the professors now lives— Dr. 
Hunter McGuire, of Richmond. 

I am, sir, respectfully yours, D. B. Conrad. 

I should have been glad to have had a further 
account of this matter from our own soldiers; 
but General Banks had just died when I received 
this note, and I knew not to whom else to 
write. I think it probable that the building 
had been used by both sides for military pur- 
poses, and this would have justified either the 
Union or Confederate forces in destroying it. 
Towards sunset, as I approached Martinsburg, 
I began to meet successive squads of soldiers — 
some on horseback, and some in wagons — re- 
turning to their homes from the review. As 
he saw them coming, my colored driver would 
turn well out upon the side of the road, and 
stop his horses until they had passed. They 
were full of Virginia patriotism, and some of 
them of something else. I put my head out of 
the carriage, and gazed at them with all the 
innocent curiosity I could express. They in- 
spected me narrowly. It would have been very 
natural, in such a time of suspicion and scrutiny, 
if they had asked my name and residence, and 
business in the State. This might have been 
embarrassing, and I was thankful when I had 
run the gauntlet unquestioned. Having entered 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. 179 

Martinsburg-, I went, as advised, to the house 
of 'Squire Conrad, where the letter of Professor 
Smith procured me a friendly reception. Mr. 
Conrad introduced me to his daughter — an ami- 
able and intelligent young lady — and to Captain 
Conrad, his son — a genial, ingenuous, and manly 
fellow — who had commanded a company at 
Brown's execution. I was happy, on invita- 
tion, to take my evening meal of tea and toast 
in this kindly social atmosphere. There was, 
I think, no other member of the family living, 
except a son who was pursuing a course of 
study at the Episcopal Theological Seminary 
at Alexandria. 'Squire Conrad, though a slave- 
holder, was a decided Union man; but when 
Virginia voted in favor of secession, the whole 
family, regretfully, but almost unavoidably, 
were drawn into the movement. I explained 
to him the object of my visit to the State, of 
which he appeared to approve; and he cordi- 
ally offered me the hospitality of his house 
until I should wish to take a train for the 
North. During our conversation, he spoke of 
the mild character of slavery in his neighbor- 
hood, saying, that he had never known but 
one master who had neglected to provide for 
his slaves when old, and he had lost standing 
with his class. During the contest at Harper's 



i8o LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

Ferry, Colonel Washington, a descendant of a 
brother of George Washington, and several 
other citizens, had been held as prisoners for a 
time, by John Brown, in the arsenal. Refer- 
ring to some question which had been raised as 
to whether Colonel Washington had behaved 
with proper courage, Mr. Conrad said he 
did not think the courage of any man bear- 
ing the name of Washington could be ques- 
tioned, but he did wonder how Colonel 
Washington could have continued to exist 
thirty hours without whiskey. After tea he 
excused himself to attend some meeting of his 
church, saying, he would leave me in charge of 
his son and daughter; and very pleasant young 
people they were to be left in charge of, as I 
can certify. I shall never forget the kindness 
of this family, which, shown to me under these 
peculiar circumstances, was doubly grateful. 
We learned that the train would not arrive until 
ten o'clock, and I suggested to Captain Conrad 
that as he might have other engagements, and 
as I could find my w^ay to the train without 
difficulty, alone, it was not necessary that he 
should give me the whole evening. He replied 
that his time was quite at my service; and there 
was so much excitement among their peo- 
ple, that he thought it better I should not be 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. i8i 

without the presence of some gentleman who 
could vouch for me. We had a long talk that 
evening about John Brown, Governor Wise, and 
the growing discord between North and South. 
He thought itunnecessary and impolitic that the 
authorities should have made such a military dis- 
play at the time of the execution, and laughed at 
the stories of abolitionists coming over the 
mountains to rescue Brown. He paid a striking 
tribute to the courage of the great fighter for 
freedom. The incident is a painful one, but it 
is instructive. An acquaintance of his who 
stood behind Brown on the scaffold, and who, 
in the discharge of official duty, had had much 
of that sad kind of experience, told him that, 
generally, however firm a condemned man 
might, in the main, appear, yet as his hands 
lay bound, one upon the other, behind his 
back, there was certain to be some nervous 
movement of the fingers, as the fatal moment 
drew near; but that, in the case of Brown, the 
fingers lay as quiet as those of a sleeping child. 
As the hour of ten approached, Captain Con- 
rad accompanied me to the station, and when 
the train arrived, to guard against the possible 
effects of a hostile telegram which might be sent 
to some town up the road by an evil-disposed 
person, he went on board the sleeper with me, 



i:82 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

• 

introduced me to the conductor as a man 
entitled to courteous treatment, and com- 
mended me to his protection. He then bade 
me good-by. That I was protected I am cer- 
tain, for, after a good night's sleep, I awoke, 
safe and sound, the next morning, in the city 
of Wheeling. 

This is perhaps a suitable point to add 
whatever I have been able to learn of the 
subsequent history of the Conrad family. 
When the war broke out both of the sons 
entered the Confederate army. It must have 
been before the close of the year 1861, that, in 
some paper, I accidentally came upon a para- 
graph, which I suppose had been copied origi- 
nally from the Virginia press, to the effect that 
two sons of 'Squire Conrad, of Winchester, 
officers in the Confederate service, had both 
been killed in the first Battle of Bull Run; that 
their bodies had been recovered, had been 
brought home to Winchester, and buried by 
moonlight. 

Having crossed the Ohio River at Wheel- 
ing, and experienced the satisfaction of once 
more setting my feet upon free soil, I took 
the cars for Wellsville. Being compelled to 
wait there an hour or two for a train to Cleve- 
land, I sent two teleg^rams to Oberlin — one to 



A JOURNEY TO VIRGINIA. 183 

my family and another to the mayor of the 
town. I had lost all knowledge of both of 
these dispatches until Mr. Copeland kindly fur- 
nished me with an old copy of the Cleveland 
''Leader" of December 28, 1859, which con- 
tains the telegram to the mayor. It reads as 

follows: — 

Wellsville, Ohio, Dec. 23, 1859. 

To Mayor Beecher : 

Obtained consent of the Faculty of Winchester Medi- 
cal College to take the body. Arrangements nearly 
completed. Was prevented by the students. 

J. Monroe. 

This telegram, I afterwards learned, afforded 
my friends considerable relief; as they had 
heard nothing of me from Monday until Friday 
of that week. The next day, Saturday, De- 
cember 24, I reached home, and on the after-^ 
noon of Sunday, the day following — Christmas 
Day — there was a mass meeting in the First 
Church, at which 1 was required to give a full 
account of my failure. I speak of the effort as 
a failure. In one sense it was a failure, but in 
another sense it was not. As a community 
and as individuals, we had done what we could, 
according to our sense of duty; and this is 
always success. At first I dreaded to meet the 
parents; but when I did meet them, I experi- 
enced unexpected relief. They had found much 



i84 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

comfort in the fact that, by the kind providence 
of God, every reasonable effort had been made 
in their own behalf, and in behalf of the mem- 
ory of their son. They were grateful to God 
and grateful to their neighbors. Their satis- 
faction was increased by the accounts which 
came in of the manly bearing of their boy in 
the time of the terrible ordeal; and they were 
finally enabled to say with the great apostle, 
"For I reckon that the sufferings of this pres- 
ent time are not worthy to be compared with 
the glory which shall be revealed in us." 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF CONSULS OF 
THE UNITED STATES DURING 
THE CIVIL WAR. 



A THURSDAY LECTURE. 

In the autumn of 1862, I was appointed by 
President Lincoln, Consul of the United States 
for the port of Rio de Janeiro. Owing to de- 
lays which I need not explain here, I did not 
reach that city and enter upon the discharge of 
my official duties until early in the following 
March. Some experiences acquired in connec- 
tion with this responsible trust, will furnish the 
subject of the present paper. 

I shall not describe the political or social or 
religious life of Brazil, although each of these 
subjects, especially in the light of recent events, 
is not without its attractions. I shall not dwell 
upon the ordinary duties of an American Con- 
sul in that country, which are very similar to 
his duties elsewhere, and are doubtless familiar 
to most intelligent readers. I shall speak only 
of certain special duties which were imposed 



i86 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

upon me by the Civil War. In giving- an account 
of this portion of my work, I shall doubtless 
also be describing work substantially the same 
done by my colleagues at other great commer- 
cial centers. These special duties of American 
Consuls during the war have not, I think, 
been much written about, and they may be 
worth recording as belonging to a class which 
our Consuls had never had to perform before, 
and which, we may hope, they may never have 
to perform again. 

During the early part of my stay in Brazil, 
one or more of the rebel cruisers — the Alaba- 
ma, the Florida, the Shenandoah, and others — 
were lying in wait near the coast of that coun- 
try, or on the high\va}'s that lead to its princi- 
pal commercial ports, to seize and destroy any 
American merchant vessels that might come in 
their way. This work of destruction was bar- 
barous, cowardly, and ruinous to our commerce, 
and was made all the more irritating by the 
fact that it received substantial aid from Eng- 
land. Of course, our vessels of war were on 
that coast exerting themselves to the utmost to 
find and destroy these steamers. But the pol- 
icy of the latter was to avoid fighting — to burn 
or sink as many defenseless vessels as possible, 
but to run away from every vessel that was 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS, 187 

armed — to inflict the f^reatest possible injury 
with the least possible risk. With this policy 
in view, the rebel vessels had been built for fast 
sailing rather than for strength. It became one 
of my first duties, on reaching my consulate, to 
use the utmost vigilance in collecting the latest 
information in regard to the whereabouts of the 
cruisers and conveying this in the promptest 
manner to the commanders of all men-of-war 
within my reach. They, of course, lost no time 
in going in pursuit. We continued this kind 
of work for a long period, and in one respect 
it did great good. The activity of our war 
steamers, the kind of omnipresence which they 
exhibited on the highways of trade, and the 
hot chase which they sometimes gave the ene- 
emy, did much to scare away the cruisers and 
to keep the roads of commerce open. But, as 
regards capturing and destroying the rebel ves- 
sels, not much was accomplished. Whenever 
one of our frigates reached the point where a 
rebel was last heard from, she was not there. 
Our officers had the greatest desire to meet 
them, but the feeling was not reciprocated. I 
thought it something of a compliment that no 
Confederate steamer came into the harbor of 
Rio de Janeiro during my residence in Brazil; 
but this was doubtless due to the great publicity 



1 88 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

which must attend the arrival of such a steam- 
er at the political and commercial capital of 
the empire. On the high seas, our war vessels 
could seldom find those of the rebels; if they 
came upon them in the harbor of a friendly 
power, they could not touch them; and if they 
waited for them outside, they would not come 
out. 

In this connection, one incident occurred 
which produced great excitement, and became 
historical. In the latter part of September, 
1864, the United States war steamer Wachu- 
sett, in charge of Commander Collins, a faith- 
ful and efficient officer, was lying in the harbor 
of Rio de Janeiro. He had come into port to 
take in coal and get news of the Confederates. 
While the Wachusett was still in the harbor, a 
dispatch came to us from Bahia, a city seven or 
eight hundred miles north of Rio de Janeiro, 
that the rebel cruiser Florida was expected to 
come to that port to obtain supplies. Com- 
mander Collins at once decided to go to Bahia. 
The afternoon before he sailed, he had a con- 
ference in my private office with the American 
minister and myself. He said, apparently in the 
way of criticism, that his young officers wished 
him to take the Florida wherever he could find 
her. I remember that he did not express any 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS. 189 

positive opinion of his own, but seemed to be 
restless and unsettled. Of course we could only 
say to him, what he must have known already, 
that if he were to touch the Florida in the har- 
bor of Bahia, it would be an insult to a friend- 
ly power and a gross violation of international 
law. Soon after he reached that port, the Flor- 
ida also entered, and the two vessels lay there 
together two or three days. The cruiser was 
fresh from the destruction of defenseless Amer- 
ican merchantmen, and her officers and sailors 
now walked the streets of Bahia, or rowed their 
boats about the harbor, before the very eyes ot 
Commander Collins, with a sense of perfect se- 
curity under the shelter of the Brazilian flag. 
The situation was very exasperating, and was 
the more provocative of an act of violence be- 
cause Commander Collins believed, and seems 
to have had some evidence for the belief, that 
Brazilian authorities, during the previous year, 
had permitted the Alabama to burn three Amer- 
ican vessels within three miles of the shore. 
Captain Morris, of the Florida, a portion of his 
officers, and half of his crew, passed the night 
of the 7th of October on shore. The people 
of the Wachusett were all on board. About 
three o'clock in the morning, Commander Col- 
lins, after a brief conference with his officers, 



IQO LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

*'bore down upon the Florida under a full head 
of steam." After a brief contest, which was 
carried on, in part, by an unsuccessful attempt 
at ramming by the Wachusett, and, in part, by 
an irregular discharge of small arms and can- 
non, the officer in charge of the Florida sur- 
rendered her. Commander Collins ordered a 
cable made fast to the Florida, and amid the 
ineffective fire of Brazilian ships and forts tow- 
ed her out of the harbor upon the high seas. 
Two Brazilian ships pursued, as soon as practi- 
cable, but soon lost sight of the Wachusett and 
her prize, and returned. A leading journal at 
Rio de Janeiro spoke of the soldiers who fired 
upon the Wachusett from the forts as exhibit- 
ing ''incredible valor." When it is remembered 
that Commander Collins was fleeing from the 
harbor with all the speed he could command, 
and that every consideration of prudence, hon- 
or, and obligation forbade his returning the fire, 
the remark seems ludicrous enough. 

A colleague of mine who had been a useful 
and well-meaning consul at Bahia, allowed his 
enthusiasm for the flag so far to get the better 
of his discretion, as to lead him unduly to en- 
large the list of duties which he thought had 
been made incumbent upon him by the war. 
He urged Commander Collins to make the 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS, igi 

capture and assisted him in it. As a result he 
found it prudent to be on board the Wachusett 
when she left the country. He had at least 
the satisfaction of being out of the reach of an 
angry mob which a few hours later attacked his 
consulate, and defaced the American coat of 
arms. 

The Brazilians were everywhere greatly ex- 
cited over this act of unfriendly violence; and 
it was only by the prompt and earnest assur- 
ances of General Webb, the spirited and patri- 
otic American minister, which were at once 
published in the papers, that the United States 
would promptly make the fullest reparation, 
that hostile feeling was allayed. 

The next morning after the news of what 
had happened in Bahia reached Rio de Janeiro, 
I found, at the foot of 'the staircase leading up 
to my consulate, a small company of soldiers. 
On entering my office, I was told by my assist- 
ants that these soldiers had been sent by the 
Chief of Police to protect the consulate in case 
there should be any danger of insult to the 
United States flag or coat of arms from excited 
men on the street. If these soldiers had no op- 
portunity to defend the consulate, they at least 
had a chance to obtain a little pocket money. 
I sent them a milreis — about half a dollar — 



192 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

apiece, with my compliments, and excused them 
from further attendance. Thus, so far as I was 
concerned, peace was made with Brazil. 

Commander Collins, without accident or in- 
terruption, towed the Florida to Hampton 
Roads on our own coast. Brazil at once made 
bitter complaint in regard to this act of hostil- 
ity to a friendly power. Mr. Seward in behalf 
of his Government promised the fullest repara- 
tion. Commander Collins would be suspended 
from rank and pay, and ordered to appear 
before a court-martial. The consul at Bahia 
would be dismissed from the service. Order 
would be taken that an American ship of war 
should proceed to the harbor of Bahia, and 
there salute the Brazilian flag in atonement for 
the outrage upon it. There was another point 
which would have been the most difficult of all. 
In making reparation, international law would 
have required that the Florida should have been 
returned to the very place from which she was 
taken in the harbor of Bahia. This was an act 
which would have been unpleasant for Brazil to 
have demanded, and humiliating for the United 
States to have performed. It might long have 
retarded an amicable adjustment. But about 
a fortnight after coming to anchor in Hampton 
Roads, the Florida sprung a leak and went to 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS. 193 

the bottom. The disposition to be made of 
the cruiser was thus removed from the contro- 
versy. I know of no accident in our history 
which was more timely or useful. The prom- 
ises of Mr. Seward were faithfully kept. The 
only fault which I ever heard found with our 
Government was that after the expiration of 
the brief period of suspension — which, I think, 
was only six months — pronounced upon him 
by the court-martial, the promotion of Com- 
mander Collins was very rapid. In 1866, he 
was advanced to the rank of captain, and as 
early as 1874 was made a rear-admiral. The 
proposed act of courtesy and reparation in the 
harbor of Bahia was considerably delayed on 
account of the missending of a dispatch, but 
was at length faithfully performed. One of 
our war steamers, the Nipsic, commanded by 
Captain Blake, entered that port July 21, 1866. 
An arrangement for the ceremonial was made 
with the proper authorities. At high noon, on 
the 23d, the Brazilian flag was displayed at the 
foremast head of the Nipsic, and a salute of 
twenty-one guns was then fired in its honor, 
from the decks of that frigate. Its guns boom- 
ed and thundered and roared, amid the accla- 
mations of the Brazilian multitudes on shore, 
until the wounded honor of Brazil was healed, 



194 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

and the old cordiality between the two nations 
was restored. 

I might have mentioned, in the proper con- 
nection, that it was made my duty by the Gov- 
ernment to communicate all intelligence which I 
might receive of the locality and the ravages of 
rebel cruisers not only to commanders of Amer- 
ican vessels of war, but also to the Department 
of State at Washington. This duty I, of 
course, continued to perform, and in so doing 
was enabled, on one occasion, to render to the 
Government a service of some importance. In 
October, 1 864, a new Confederate steamer made 
her appearance near the equator, northeast of 
Brazil, and commenced the work of destruction. 
She was called the Shenandoah, was English- 
built, and commanded by Captain Waddell. 
Our consuls felt as much interest in watching 
for new rebel steamers as astronomers do in 
watching for new comets, and the question of 
priority of discovery sometimes excited atten- 
tion. Within a few weeks this cruiser captured 
and burnt or sunk four American vessels, and 
captured and bonded a fifth. The captains and 
portions of the crews of two of these vessels, 
after having been taken on board the Shenan- 
doah as prisoners, were placed by arrangement 
on board a Danish brig, the Anna Jans, which 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS. 195 

happened to make a quick passage to Rio de 
Janeiro. With the aid of statements from these 
captains, who were intelhgent and observing 
men, I was enabled to send to Mr. Seward, un- 
der date of November 29, 1864, the first definite 
and somewhat complete account of the Shen- 
andoah and her ravages. My dispatch was for- 
warded by Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams in London, 
was by him laid before Earl Russell, as the basis 
of a claim upon the British government for 
damages, and, I trust, added something to the 
moral weight of that appeal for justice which 
the United States made to the tribunal at 
Geneva. 

Another consular duty imposed upon me by 
the Civil War, and especially by the presence of 
rebel cruisers on the coast of Brazil, was to re- 
ceive and provide for the seamen from our sunk 
or burnt merchant vessels, who had been made 
prisoners by the Confederates, and afterwards 
sent on shore, generally in a destitute condition. 
Large numbers found their way, directly or in- 
directly, to Rio de Janeiro. They had often 
been inhumanly treated, and for the most part, 
everything which they possessed of an}^ value 
had been taken from them. They were some- 
times sent adrift with nothing except what 
decency absolutely demanded — a single shirt 



196 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

and a pair of trousers. It became my duty to 
take charge of these forlorn and disheartened 
people — to feed and clothe them — to secure 
hospital accommodations for the exhausted and 
the sick, and to arrange for their return to the 
United States, either by reshipping them or by 
placing them as passengers on homeward bound 
vessels. All this required a considerable ex- 
penditure of money, which must be made with 
careful economy and accompanied with a strict 
system of accounts. It was often a painful 
thing to meet companies of my fellow-country- 
men almost literally stripped of all they had in 
the world; but I had no pleasanter duty to 
perform, while in Brazil, than to supply their 
wants. In doing this work, I was only contin- 
uing what had been well begun by my prede- 
cessor, a gallant and capable officer, the Hon- 
orable R. C. Parsons, of Cleveland. 

This brings me to notice another of my du- 
ties which grew out of the war — a duty which 
came, not in the form of service to destitute vic- 
tims of rebels, but of service to destitute reb- 
els themselves. When the armies of the Con- 
federacy were vanquished, and the Union of 
the States was restored, many Southern men 
found themselves so uncomfortable in what 
they were pleased to regard as a condition of 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS. 197 

subjugation, that they resolved to migrate from 
under the flag and out of the country that they 
had come to hate. Their attention was at 
once turned to Brazil as their future home. 
This seems to have been due, in part, to the 
fact that its staple products were to some ex- 
tent the same as those of their own section, 
and, in part, to the fact that Brazil was still 
a slaveholding nation. Disappointed, soured, 
humiliated, they would flee from a republic 
where they had been beaten in a desperate 
struggle for power, and where many hundreds 
of millions of property had been taken from 
them in the forced emancipation of their slaves, 
and would find refuge under the flag of an em- 
pire where sugar and rice and cotton could 
still be raised from the soil, and where they 
could still maintain an aristocratic position and 
their title to the name of gentlemen by contin- 
uing in the relation of slaveholders. In 1865 
and 1866, large numbers of these men, often 
with their families, having turned all that they 
had left into gold, emigrated to Brazil; and of 
these some hundreds came to the city of Rio 
de Janeiro. I was told that, when they ar- 
rived, they were sometimes asked if they would 
not visit the American Consul, but that the 
reply was that they had no wish to see "Abe 



iqS lectures and essays. 

Lincoln's hireling." President Lincoln had then 
been some months dead, but the old phrase 
still answered their purpose. At that time, 
however, they did not seem to be in much need 
of aid from the Consul. They were received 
with much friendly attention, and even with dis- 
tinction, by Brazilian officials both at the Capi- 
tal and in the interior, and every assistance was 
rendered them in the choice of their new homes. 
They bought or leased lands, bought or hired 
slaves, and once more had all the dignity of 
planters. For a time, everything appeared to 
go well; but in less than a year, that failure — 
that financial ruin — which had always been in- 
evitable, had already overtaken a portion of 
them, and soon involved nearly all. The causes 
were not far to seek. First of all, they did not 
understand farming in Brazil, and they did not 
find it easy to acquire a knowledge of it. Many 
of the slaves whom they had bought, or for 
whose services they had contracted, ran away, 
and it was not easy to recover them. There 
were laws in Brazil for the return of escaped 
slaves, but it was difficult to find the slaves. 
The fugitives secured places of refuge among 
their fellow-slaves, upon plantations far and 
near, and the Brazilian planters themselves were 
thought to be unsympathetic and unhelpful in 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS. 199 

the work of rendition. It added to the incon- 
venience of the situation that most of our 
Southern friends could not speak or understand 
the Portuguese language. Many of them soon 
found that they had not money enough left to 
support themselves and their families until they 
could gather and market their first crop, and, 
in some cases, there did not seem likely to be 
any first crop. The outcome of all this was a 
strong reaction in the minds of the emigrants 
in favor of returning to their native land. The 
advanced guard of the retreating force soon 
made its appearance in Rio de Janeiro, and 
other detachments followed at intervals. This 
time they had no prejudices which prevented 
their visiting the American Consul, and I found 
them as affable and gracious as I could desire. 
Many of them were very estimable people. 
They frankly avowed their willingness to be in- 
debted to the United States or to private indi- 
viduals for present support and conveyance to 
some one of our ports. In anticipation of this, 
I had solicited subscriptions from Americans in 
Rio de Janerio to replenish the treasury of an 
organization known as the "American Benevo- 
lent Society," which had sometimes aided citi- 
zens of the United States in reduced condition, 
and from which some temporary relief might 



200 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

be afforded to these returning Confederates. 
But all that could be obtained from this source 
was quite inadequate to their needs. They 
must somehow have help on a larger scale. Not 
only must their board be paid, for a time, in 
Rio de Janeiro, but provision must be promptly 
made for their return to their homes, in Geor- 
gia, Alabama, and Mississippi. 

I wrote to Secretary Seward describing the 
situation of these sufferers and begging that 
the Government, in spite of its enormous debt 
and its great current expenditure, would adopt 
some plan to convey them to the United States. 
I never knew Mr. Seward to neglect an appeal 
in behalf of American citizens. He always did 
something, and I used to think that what he 
did was always the best thing. By return of 
steamer, I received a dispatch from him, in re- 
ply to mine, enclosing another from Mr. Welles, 
the Secretary of the Navy. The dispatch from 
Mr. Welles was addressed to the commanders 
of all homeward-bound American vessels of 
war, ordering them to take on board as many 
of the destitute Southerners as they could ac- 
commodate and convey them to the United 
States at the expense of the Government. Mr. 
Seward wrote me, making it my duty, whenever 
one of our war vessels should enter the harbor. 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS. 201 

to go on board and read or exhibit to her com- 
manding officer both the dispatch of Mr. Sew- 
ard and that of Mr. Welles. The speedy arri- 
val at Rio de Janeiro of the United States war 
steamer Guerriere — then one of the finest ves- 
sels in our navy — gave me, I think, my first 
opportunity to perform this new service. The 
Guerriere was the flag-ship of Admiral Davis, 
then in command of the South Atlantic Squad- 
ron, and her captain was F. M. Ramsey, who, 
after many years of honorable service, is now, 
with therank ofcommodore,'^chiefof the Bureau 
of Navigation in Washington. I went promptly 
on Board the Guerriere, paid my respects to the 
admiral, and exhibited the order from the Gov- 
ernment. He seemed much disturbed He 
said the proposed plan was impracticable. The 
Secretaries could not have realized what they 
were doing. Should the Guerriere take her 
quota of these unfortunates, her main deck 
must be covered with houses for their accommo- 
dation. This would leave no room to work 
the guns or handle the men. The ship would 
become a scene of confusion and disorder. 
And suppose her commander should have to 
fight a naval battle on the way home.^ What 
could the Guerriere do under such disabilities 
* Recently promoted to the rank of admiral. 



202 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

and with such a crowd of non-combatants on 
board? To be sure we had no present pros- 
pect of war; but who could tell what the fu- 
ture would develop? A ship of war was made 
to fight, and she ought always to be ready to 
do it. It was not my duty to argue these ques- 
tions with the admiral. I listened respectfull}', 
and only replied, that I, of course, had no author- 
ity in the case, having acted merely as the mes- 
senger of Mr. Seward. I then took my leave, 
Now Admiral Davis was an accomplished and 
efficient officer and an excellent man. He did 
gallant service during the war. He was a man 
of large scientific attainments and a cultivated 
gentlemen. He was the author of several val- 
uable works; was the founder of the American 
Nautical Almanac; had been connected with 
the Coast Survey; and had been Superintend- 
ent of the National Observatory at Washing- 
ton. There were many things that he could 
do; but, that day, he did not think he could 
place a company of Southern emigrants upon 
the Guerriere. He was a strict disciplinarian, 
and a precise, neat, methodical naval officer; 
and he thought it would put the commander 
out beyond endurance to turn his magnificent 
vessel of war into an emigrant-ship. He was 
a kind-hearted man, and was not wanting in 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS. 203 

liberality of feeling toward defeated Confeder- 
ates. His objections were purely professional, 
and were not unnatural. It must have been 
the next day that he came to the consulate. I 
saw in a moment that he had changed his plan. 
He began by making inquiries as to the num- 
ber of the emigrants, how far they were in fam- 
ilies or otherwise, and other matters; and in a 
few moments we were engaged in friendly and 
animated conversation as to the best method of 
making the necessary preparation for sending a 
considerable number of them home upon the 
flag-ship. This good work was duly accom- 
plished. I believe houses were built upon the 
main deck for their accommodation. And the 
commander of the Guerriere did take home 
with him on that ship fifty-five of their num- 
ber. There was no naval battle fought on the 
way home, and I have reason to believe that, 
what with the pleasure of the common sailors 
at the new and interesting experience, the judi- 
cious management of Captain Ramsey, the of- 
ficer in command, the kindness of the officers 
generally to the destitute emigrants, and the 
warm gratitude of those emigrants to all con- 
cerned, there was universal good feeling on 
board the ship. Subsequently I was enabled to 
send home companies upon other war steamers. 



204 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

Some found their way home upon merchant 
vessels. And thus at length nearly all of the em- 
igrants in Rio de Janeiro and its neighborhood 
had been conveyed to the United States, ex- 
cept a few who had found professional or other 
employment in Brazil. So popular did the ser- 
vice which I thus rendered make me in the 
South that when I came home, and went to 
Congress, I received a petition from a large 
Southern town in a neighborhood from which 
many of the emigrants had gone to Brazil, 
urging me to get one of their number appointed 
to a lucrative office! 

Another duty growing out of the war which 
came over to me from my predecessor, was the 
management of a law-suit. I have no papers 
with me to refresh my memory, but believe that 
I have correctly in mind the principal facts of 
this case. When the war broke out, three 
American merchant vessels from Richmond, 
Virginia, were lying in the harbor of Rio de 
Janeiro. The owners, wishing to escape from 
the jurisdiction of the United States, made a 
nominal sale of the vessels to an English house 
in the last-named city. Upon this sale as a 
basis, they undertook to effect a change of flag 
from the United States to England. Some au- 
thorities of the place gave their sanction to the 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS. 205 

change. Mr. Seward authorized the minister 
and consul of our government at Rio de Janeiro 
to contest- the legality of this proceeding before 
the Brazilian courts. The litigation continued 
for several years. We soon had a decision 
against us, but, for myself, I must confess that 
I did the best that I could through able counsel 
to cause delay, by "appeals," " bills of excep- 
tion," "new trials," "revisions," and whatever 
other forms of obstruction the courts of Brazil 
permitted. At length a decision of the highest 
court was given against the United States. It 
was decided that the change of flag was a legal 
transaction. I could do nothing more. The 
English house now put one of the vessels in 
repair that it might be sent to sea upon a com- 
mercial venture. But when, on a pleasant af- 
ternoon, a steam tug towed it out of the harbor. 
Captain Glisson, commanding a United States 
war steamer, I think the Mohican, sailed out at 
the same time, presumably to try his machine- 
ry. The captain of the merchantman observ- 
ing this, kept well within the marine league, 
and, hugging the shore, set his face towards 
Cape Frio. As night came on, finding that he 
was still accompanied by Captain Glisson, he 
ordered the tug to turn back in the growing 
darkness, and thus returned to the harbor. 



2o6 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

And there Captain Glisson found him, lying 
peacefully at anchor, when he also returned on 
the following morning. After this, the three 
vessels remained quietly in the harbor until the 
end of the war. 

I will ask your attention to but one more of 
the duties imposed upon me, while abroad, by 
the Civil War, and that the saddest which I had 
to perform. The French packet which reached 
Rio de Janeiro on the i8th of May, 1865, 
brought the startling intelligence of the at- 
tempted assassination of President Lincoln and 
Secretary Seward. It appeared that Mr. Lin- 
coln had died, or was about to die, from a 
wound which he had received; and that Mr. 
Seward, when already in a feeble condition from 
a previous accident, had been frightfully injured, 
but that there was some hope of his recovery. 
I cannot describe the grief and consternation 
that filled the hearts of all our little company of 
loyal Americans at the news of these monstrous 
crimes. Our compatriots in the United States 
were profoundly affected by this terrible trag- 
edy; but to understand how we felt in Brazil the 
reader must remember that we were thousands 
of miles from home — that we were few in num- 
ber and surrounded, for the most part, by un- 
sympathetic people — that we had long watched 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS, iq-j 

with intense interest every turn in the fortunes 
of the patriotic cause in our own country, and 
that we were all half homesick. This blow 
was all the heavier that it fell upon us in the 
very midst of our rejoicing over the capture of 
Richmond and the surrender of Lee. We had 
spoken to each other of the noble satisfaction 
which President Lincoln, Secretary Seward, and 
their associates must feel at having, under the 
good hand of God, brought our beloved coun- 
try through all her troubles to so grand a tri- 
umph. Then came the sad intelligence which 
turned our joy into mourning. We were in 
doubt how far the death of our two great lead- 
ers might not undo much of what had been ac- 
complished. We did not see how the country 
could afford, at so grave and delicate a crisis, to 
lose the patient fidelity, the generosity, and the 
strong good sense of Mr. Lincoln, or the sagac- 
ity, the firmness, and the wise moderation of Mr. 
Seward. Our strong men wept, and every one 
felt that he had experienced a great personal 
calamity. It became my duty to prepare a dis- 
patch for the Department of State, expressing, 
as well as I could, these feelings and opinions of 
loyal Americans in Rio de Janeiro. As the Sec- 
retary of State had been so seriously injured that 
he might not then be alive, and as his son, the 



2o8 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

Assistant Secretary,' had been severely wounded 
at the time of the assault upon his father, my 
dispatch was addressed to Mr. Hunter, the 
Chief Clerk, the next officer in rank, whose long 
and faithful service had made him a kind of 
Under Secretary of the English type. In writ- 
ing to him, I expressed my gratification that in 
such a time of confusion and peril, the Depart- 
ment had an officer of so much experience, 
ability, and knowledge of its affairs. The dis- 
patch bore the date of May 22, 1865. As 
there was then no steam line between Brazil 
and the United States, about three months 
elapsed before I received a reply. When it 
came, it was a relief to find that it had been 
dictated by Mr. Seward, and signed by his own 
hand. It was dated July 10, 1865, and ex- 
hibited that unpretentious simplicity and 
thoughtfulness for others which were a part 
of his character. He had been an early anti- 
slavery man, and always a friend of liberty, of 
the Constitution, and the Union. He had done 
great things, and borne many things for these 
causes. But he was not a man to make much 
of his labors or his sufferings. It was his 
way to work on in his appointed task — to fight 
his battle, if* that were necessary. If the people 
honored him, it was thankfully acknowledged. 



SPECIAL DUTIES OF OUR CONSULS. 209 

If his reputation was assailed, or his life at- 
tempted, he could bear it. When a frame 
that had been mutilated and almost destroyed 
by the knife of the assassin, had been so far re- 
stored that it could be borne to the office of 
State, he resumed his labors where they had 
been interrupted. I still have in my possession 
the original of Mr. Seward's reply to my dis- 
patch, it being one of those original papers 
which I have found it a satisfaction to preserve. 
It would seem to have been one of the first dis- 
patches sent out by him after his illness. A 
portion of this paper I will quote. After some 
introductory matter, Mr. Seward says: — 

*' It is a very pleasant duty on my part to ex- 
press my entire approval of the sentiment you 
have expressed in regard to the dreadful act of 
assassination which closed the military struggle 
of the insurgents, and gave our late lamented 
President the martyr's crown in exchange for 
his position as the executive magistrate of a 
triumphant Republic. 

" Moreover, I take special pleasure in ex- 
pressing my concurrence with you in your esti- 
mate of the services of Mr. Hunter, the Chief 
Clerk, so lately acting as the provisional head 
of this Department. His extensive knowledge, 
incorruptible patriotism and honesty, combined 



2IO LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

with rare practical ability, make him always a 
safe reliance for the Government on occasions 
when his services are demanded. 

" For myself, I need not assure you that I 
am profoundly affected by the feelings of good 
will and kiildness which you have tendered to 
soothe the memory of some incidents of a 
painful interest." 

In thus describing some of the special duties 
laid upon me by the Civil War — duties much 
like those which my colleagues at other ports 
had to perform — I have, I trust, made it evi- 
dent that the Consuls of the United States were 
not without their fair share of the labor and re- 
sponsibility of the great conflict in which their 
country was engaged, and that, however far- 
reaching in their influence were the evils of the 
war, they were not more far-reaching than the 
intelligence and energy of President Lincoln and 
his Secretary of State in providing against 
them. 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD AND THE 

FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE 

UNITED STATES. 

AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE FACULTY AND 

STUDENTS OF OBERLIN COLLEGE, 

FEBRUARY 22, I 892. 

The policy of Abraham Lincoln in giving 
cabinet positions to all the Republican candi- 
dates for the Presidency who had been opposed 
to him in the Chicago Convention of i860, has 
been much debated. But there can be no 
question that, in two cases, it proved to be a 
decided success. Salmon P. Chase was a great 
financial secretary, and William H. Seward was 
as nearly an ideal secretary of foreign affairs as 
men can ever be made. How can I properly 
characterize this distinguished triumvirate .'' I 
can only say that President Lincoln had the 
most perfect knowledge of the great mass of 
the people and the most perfect sympathy with 
them — in other words, the most perfect instinct 



212 LEC TURES A ND ESS A YS. 

for home politics — of any ruler known in his- 
tory ; that Mr. Chase was the only secretary of 
finance that ever saved his country by means of 
irredeemable paper money ; and that Mr. Se- 
ward was the only foreign secretary who ever 
induced great powers whose aggregate resour- 
ces were immensely superior to his own, and 
who would have had the advantage in attacking 
his country that it had already about all the 
burden of war it could carry, to remain neutral 
during several years, at great political and com- 
mercial inconvenience to themselves and their 
people, simply out of respect for his logic. 
England alone had a fleet which could have de- 
stroyed our navy and broken through the lines 
of President Lincoln's blockade in a single day; 
but what navy or what army could break the 
lines of Mr. Seward's arguments, based upon 
sound principles of international law, the law of 
nature and of the Author of nature.? It is no 
extravagance of speech to say that for four 
years Mr. Seward kept all Europe at bay with 
a syllogism. But you will expect this proposi- 
tion to be supported by evidence ; and this 
brings me to the announcement of my subject, 
which is, William H. Seward and the Foreign 
Affairs of the United States. 

Justice has not been done to Mr. Seward. 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 213 

His consentincT, on account of a great mass of 
unfinished business, to remain in the Cabinet of 
President Johnson, after nearly all his col- 
leagues had resigned their places, brought upon 
him severe attacks from the Republican press 
and politicians. I nee-d hardly add that the 
hostility of the Democratic party he had in- 
curred already. And so it came to pass that it 
was, at one time, the fashion for the whole 
world to cry out against Mr. Seward. This 
state of feeling perpetuated itself Later 
writers copied from earlier, and wrote out with 
care the current falsehoods which they heard. 
This unreasoning prejudice has continued, in 
some degree, to the present time. Further, Mr. 
Seward's reputation had suffered, in some in- 
stances, from what may be called the biographic 
bias. Even a work, in general, so admirable, 
both in style and matter, and so indispensable 
to the future student of history as that of Mr. 
Nicolay and Mr. Hay, is not exempt from this. 
It is not that you find in its pages conscious 
unfairness or important inaccuracy as to facts ; 
but that the authors, by a delicate gift in per- 
spective, cause their hero, whose high merit all 
admit, to loom largely in the foreground, and 
retire into the background, with reduced pro- 
portions, some of the great men who supported 



214 LEC TURES A ND ESS A YS. 

him. Some English writers and statesmen 
have expressed the highest appreciation of Mr. 
Seward's abihty and patriotism. But this has 
not done much to restore his reputation in this 
country. In view of the wrong thus done to Mr. 
Seward, it was with some satisfaction that I ac- 
cepted an invitation to say a word in his behalf 
to-day. I felt that I might fairly claim to have 
had some opportunity to form an intelligent 
and well-founded as well as favorable opinion 
of his administration of our foreign affairs. I 
was in the service of the Government under him 
from March, 1863, until March, 1869. During 
my term of office it was my duty to read all the 
printed consular and diplomatic correspondence 
of the Department of State, which was furnished 
me for that purpose. I read all circulars ad- 
dressed to consuls whether confidential or other- 
wise, and my relations to the United States 
legation in Brazil were such that I knew, I sup- 
pose, much of what was current in diplomatic 
circleswhether official or unofficial. I have felt, 
therefore, that I was not without some claim 
to be heard in behalf of Mr. Seward. But while 
I have prepared this address from the stand- 
point of opinions long since formed, I have not 
failed to compare my impressions with those of 
writers of approved merit for the purpose of 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 215 

supplementation or correction in any case where 
the truth of history seemed to require it. And 
here I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness 
to Baker's "Works of William H. Seward" and 
to the life of the great Secretary, by his son, 
Frederick W. Seward, who was his Assistant 
Secretary of State, for facts which had not come 
to my knowledge from other sources, or, if 
known at the time, had escaped my memory. 

In presentitig my subject, I will speak, first, 
of the work which Mr. Seward had to do; next, 
of the qualifications which he brought to it; 
and, last, of the degree of success with which 
he performed it. 

I, Of the work which Mr. Seward had to do, 
the difficult and burdensome portion was that 
which grew out of the war; and here his first 
task was to prevent the great powers of Europe 
from acknowledging the independence of the 
Confederacy and from furnishing it any form of 
military aid. That he should accomplish this, 
would seem to have been indispensable to the 
success of the Union cause. There were times 
when the fortunes of North and South hung in 
so even a scale that recognition or military in- 
tervention from Europe would probably have 
brought the war to a disastrous close. But 
a glance at the situation when our Civil W^ar 



2i6 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

began, will show us that to prevent such inter- 
vention was a work of immense difficult}-. 

Most of the great powers of Europe, espec- 
ially France and England, had powerful motives 
for not wishing us well. England soon found 
the war a serious embarrassment to her manu- 
factures and trade. She contended that Presi- 
dent Lincoln's blockade ought not to be con- 
sidered legal because it was not effective, and at 
the same time complained that it was sufficient- 
ly effective to deprive her, for the most part, of 
that great staple which was necessary to her 
cotton manufactures. 

In i860, American cotton was worth, on the 
docks of Liverpool, ^"3 per hundred weight ; in 
1863, it was worth ^'13 per hundred weight. 
England at once did what she could to get cot- 
ton from other countries, but this was scant in 
amount and inferior in quality, and soon com- 
manded prices showing an advance correspond- 
ing to that in the price of American cotton. 
Many cotton mills had to be closed, in many 
others the hours of labor had to be reduced, and 
thousands of laborers had to be turned out of 
employment. The loss to England from what 
was known as the *' cotton famine" was esti- 
mated at /f/o, 000,000 or $350,000,000. The 
very life of England, as it is only fair to 



WILLIAM If. SEWARD. 217 

remember, depends upon her trade, and hence 
she has become proverbially sensitive to any in- 
jury to her commeixial prosperity. She wished 
the war in the United States to cease as soon 
as possible; and to that end, if the North could 
not be conquered by the South, and thus the 
whole nation be brought under Southern rule 
and so into sympathy with her commercial 
theories and plans, which she tliought rather 
improbable, then, as the next best thing, she 
wished our Government would let the South go 
and become an independent commonwealth, in 
which case, Mr. Jefferson Davis' commissioners, 
who had been unofficially received, assured her 
she could have free trade with the new nation, 
could get all the cotton she wanted, and find a 
great market for her manufactures. Bearing in 
mind, then, England's great necessities, and the 
tempting and endlessly \'aried suggestions of 
the representatives of the South as to modes of 
relieving them, we are not to be surprised that 
she taxed to the utmost the ability of her law- 
yers and the ingenuity of her statesmen in de- 
vising expedients by which the blockade might 
be broken, or our Government be compelled, in 
some way, to reopen to England the trade of 
the country. In keeping with this view, public 
opinion in England favored her ship builders in 



2i8 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

furnishing vessels of war to the South — the 
theory being that the more help the South had 
the sooner the North would discover the wis- 
dom of letting her establish an independent 
government. When, in addition to all this, we 
remember that England is opinionated, impe- 
rious, and -accustomed to have her way, we 
shall see what a task Mr. Seward had upon his 
hands. 

In France, the problem was still more diffi- 
cult. That country, to a great extent, suffered 
the same embarrassments to her trade, from our 
war, that England did; but there was another 
and deeper cause for dissatisfaction. Napoleon 
was growing unpopular in his own country, 
and losing his hold upon power. Oppression, 
wastefulness, and disregard of solemn pledges, 
were working their proper results. It occurred 
to the Emperor that he could dazzle the French 
people, and regain their favor by some bril- 
liant exploit in the name of the Latin races. 
He undertook to subvert the republic of Mex- 
ico and establish a monarchy in its place with 
Prince Maximilian of Austria upon the throne. 
This, besides filling France with cries of" Vive 
I'Empereur," would doubtless restore good 
feeling with Austria, which had been impaired 
by the war in Italy. But Napoleon knew that 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 219 

the proposed movement in Mexico would seri- 
ously offend our Government, as being contrary 
to the " Monroe doctrine " as well as to all 
principles of righteous international dealing. 
Hence he doubtless regarded it as a piece of 
good fortune that when he wished to inaugu- 
rate his new enterprise, the United States were 
occupied with a war with their own rebellious 
States. In this contest, his warm sympathies 
were with the South. He earnestly desired 
that it might secure national independence, or 
that, at least, it might be able to protract the . 
war until he could carry out his designs upon 
Mexico. This disposition on his part was kept 
in vigorous activity by the shrewdness and tact 
of the Confederate commissioners, to whom un- 
official interviews were accorded. Those who 
have studied the character of Napoleon will not 
be surprised to learn that from the time when 
he discovered that the success of the North 
would be unfavorable to his interest, he omitted 
nothing in the way of intrigue, of appeals 
to the cupidity of different courts, of pro- 
posals for joint mediation, joint recognition, 
and joint intervention, and of implied threats to 
the United States which he thought likely to 
promote his end. Mr. Seward had to make an 
unceasing fight against all this, and had to do it 



220 LECTURERS AND ESSA YS. 

under the great disadvantage that he thought it 
his duty constantly to add to the irritation of 
the Emperor by protesting against his occupa- 
tion of Mexico. Indeed there was a time when 
Mr. Seward could probably have secured the 
absolute neutrahty of France, if not some ac- 
tive S)'mpathy with his own Government, by 
consenting to the robbery of Mexico. But this 
he could not do. He must sa\'e the Union, but 
must save it along with personal and national 
honor. When in June, 1864, Maximilian was 
finally placed upon his tottering throne, Napo- 
leon intimated to Mr. Seward that it would be 
good policy for him to acknowledge the new 
Emperor of Mexico, which Mr. Seward refused 
to do. 

Such was the work which Mr. Seward had to 
do, or at least to attempt, in connection with 
France. When we think of it as added to that 
which, we have seen, he had to do in treating 
with England, we form some idea of the weight 
of care which rested upon our Secretary of State 
during our war. 

It may be suitable here to present a {&\\ facts 
out of the many which iTiight be quoted, to 
illustrate and confirm the statements which 
have been made in regard to the attitude of 
France and England toward our country and 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 221 

the efforts of the rebel commissioners. As early 
as June, 1861, Mr. Seward learned, through our 
legation at St. Petersburg, that France and 
England had made an agreement to act jointly 
in all matters pertaining to the American war, 
including possible recognition. Russia, who 
was throughout the steadfast friend of the 
United States, was invited to join this coalition, 
but had declined to do so on the ground that 
our Government had not asked for her good 
offices. Mr. Seward, writing to Mr. Adams in 
September, 1862, says: — "Perhaps the most 
portentous incident that has occurred in the 
progress of this unhappy strife, was the an- 
nouncement made to us by the governments of 
Great Britain and France, that they had agreed 
to act together in regard to the questions which 
it should present for their consideration. Every 
one knows the influence that the united wills of 
these two great maritime powers carry in the 
councils of other states." Napoleon, who was 
the restless member of this league, was con- 
stantly making new suggestions to the English 
ministry in regard to methods of mediation and 
intervention. In December, 1861, one of our 
representatives abroad writes from London that 
Napoleon is demanding of England the break- 
ing of the blockade. A few weeks later we are 



222 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

told that "the Emperor has renewed his sug- 
gestion of interference in our affairs." It was 
during the darkest days of the war, when our 
affairs, both at home and abroad, were in their 
most critical condition, that Napoleon addressed 
an autograph letter to Mr. Seward, announcing 
his intention of intervening in the contest with 
all his strength. In writing to our minister at 
Paris in October, 1862, Mr. Seward says he has 
'* information that Great Britain and France are 
seriously considering the question of recogniz- 
ing the insurgents of this country as a sovereign 
State." The month following, Mr. Seward 
writes again to Mr. Dayton that he has learned 
by telegraph that Napoleon has asked England 
and Russia to join him " in recommending an 
armistice in our Civil War." In Februar}^, 
1863, Napoleon proposed to Mr. Seward 
through his minister in Washington, that our 
Government should hold a conference with the 
rebel commissioners on neutral ground. A few 
months later, Mr. Seward writes, "We have the 
personal authority of the Emperor of the French 
for the fact that he has announced to Great 
Britain that he is willing to follow, if Great 
Britain will lead the way, in recognizing the in- 
surgents." In August, 1863, Mr. Seward com- 
plains of the Emperor's repeated suggestions of 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 11^ 

accommodation with the insurgents. These 
facts are enough, perhaps more than enough, 
to illustrate the adverse feeling toward our 
cause which existed in the two great monarch- 
ies of Western Europe and especially in France. 
This feeling it was the constant work of the 
commissioners of the Confederacy to fan into 
more vigorous life. It was stated by a high 
authority that the insurgents began their in- 
trigues for foreign intervention before they be- 
gan their home organization. The Southern 
commissioners in Europe had ability, shrewd- 
ness, tact, plausibility. They were indefatiga- 
ble, and they were omnipresent. This week 
they are ''poisoning the sources of opinion" in 
London. The next week they are "redoubling 
their energy" in Paris. They argue, they plead, 
they enlighten. They are so candid that they 
are willing to submit the whole question in dis- 
pute upon this continent to the Emperor Napo- 
leon himself They wish France and England 
to do what is for their own interest, and are 
willing to be at some trouble to explain what 
that interest is. They everywhere promise cot- 
ton and free trade and whatever else may be 
desired. There will be no narrowness, no 
prejudice, no selfishness about them. It was 
reported that to conciliate the anti-slavery 



224 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

people of England and France they offered to 
emancipate their slaves. On the 4th of May, 
1 86 1, they assured Lord Russell that slavery 
was not a principal cause of the rebellion, but 
that its real cause was the high prices which 
the South was obliged to pay for manufactured 
goods, by way of protecting the Northern 
manufacturers. They demanded recognition of 
independence on the ground that they were de 
facto a nation. They said. We have a constitu- 
tion, a President, a regular administration of 
justice, an immense territory, eight or nine 
millions of people, hundreds of thousands of 
men under arms. Even the United States 
must, at no distant day, acknowledge our inde- 
pendence. VVe shall then make such treaties 
with the nations as we please. What will not 
then be your regret that you had not, by an 
earlier avowal of your friendship, gained the 
first place in our esteem ! All these intrigues 
of the Confederate commissioners had to be 
watched, exposed, and counteracted by Mr. 
Seward, and this, of course, greatly added to a 
burden which already seemed as great as any 
minister of state could bear. 

But Mr* Seward had other duties growing 
out of the war besides that of preventing Euro- 
pean intervention. We have already seen that, 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 225 

in the interest of national independence upon 
this continent, he had constantly to protest 
against, and prevent, if possible, the subversion 
of a republic and the substitution of a mon- 
archy in its place, in a neighboring state. He 
had to protest against the building of Confeder- 
ate vessels in British ports; and the claims of the 
United States upon England for. the destruc- 
tion of her merchant marine by such vessels, 
he had to press upon her majesty's government 
until the very close of the period of his public 
service. He had to be watchful for the inter- 
ests of the United States in every part of the 
globe at a time when those interests were 
specially exposed to injury on account of the 
prevalent impression that we were so embar- 
rassed by the war that whatever treatment we 
might receive we could not resent it. In this 
connection the correspondence of ministers and 
consuls furnished him with a multitude of de- 
tails which claimed his attention. The restor- 
ation of the Union did not bring him so much 
relief as might have been expected. The great 
contest had started many new questions and 
disturbed treaty relations with foreign powers. 
Offense had been given and taken in many cases, 
^and much correspondence had to take place, and 
many efforts at conciliation and many urgent 



226 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

demands for justice had to be made before good 
feeling could be restored with all the parties 
concerned. 

I might add that the work thus far described, 
which Mr. Seward had to do, was all in addi- 
tion to the ordinary work of a Secretary of 
State ; and of this he had his full share through- 
out the whole eight years of his service as foreign 
minister. Questions of trade, of immigration, 
of naturalization, of boundaries, of interoceanic 
canals, of the acquisition of foreign territory and 
harbors — all demanded prompt and laborious 
attention. 

IL Having thus dwelt as long as time will 
permit upon the work which Mr. Seward had to 
do, I proceed to consider next the qualifications 
which he brought to the performance of it. 

I might very justly say, as prefatory to what 
is to follow, that Mr. Seward was a man of 
irreproachable character, a thoroughly upright 
man, and an incorruptible patriot; that he 
was a firm adherent of the Christian faith, as is 
evident from his letters to his friends and from 
his daily life; that he was a sound lawyer and 
a scholar of wide and thoughtful reading; that 
he was a clear and accurate thinker, exhibited 
a fine literar\/ quality in his written efforts, and, 
had a rare judicial candor in investigation; that 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 227 

some of his most carefully prepared speeches 
are to this day the best expression of the best 
thought upon the subjects which "they discuss ; 
that he had long experience in public affairs as 
a leader in New York politics, as a legislator 
and Governor in that State, and as a member 
of the United States Senate, in which foreign 
affairs are, of necessity, much studied and de- 
bated. But these qualifications he shared more 
or less with many of his contemporaries ; and 
they are, in the aggregate, only such as should 
be taken for granted as being, if not necessary, 
at least most desirable, as the foundation on 
which the character of a great foreign secretary 
had to be built up during our Civil War. I pass, 
therefore, to consider rather certain qualities of 
Mr. Seward which appear to me to have given 
him a special fitness for the work he had to do. 
T. And here I mention first his great hope- 
fulness. I almost think there never was a min- 
ister of state so richly endowed with this quality 
as Mr. Seward. It was a splendid natural in- 
heritance, which good management had still 
further increased. No doubt it sometimes led 
him into extravagant predictions. Early in the 
war it was the fashion of the newspapers to 
laugh over what was reported as examples of 
this. Some of the anecdotes then put in circu- 



228 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

lation have since been shown to be inventions; 
as, for instance, the statement attributed to him 
that the Rebelhon would be put down in sixty 
days. But, making every allowance for the ex- 
aggerations of the press and of the story-tellers, 
the fact remains that he was, I think we may 
say ahvays, a man of the highest hope. The 
cause of the country always wore for him a 
hopeful aspect — always gave promise of success. 
During the four years of war, he never sent 
abroad a disheartening dispatch. How could 
lie.'* Nothing discouraging ever happened in 
his experience. If there had been a victory, it 
was to be only the harbinger of more victories. 
If there had been a defeat, it was an abnormal 
event, the result of exceptional causes, which no 
longer existed. His hopefulness had the good 
quality that it was steadfast. No disappoint- 
ment in the past abated one jot of his hope for 
the future. He might have been oversanguine 
yesterda)', but he is not so to day, nor will he 
be hereafter. You may say that this quality 
was at least soiriewhat extravagant in him, that 
it was an element in his character somewhat 
out of proportion. My reply is that he needed 
every particle of it for the work he had to do. 
If there ever was a man who had a task which 
demanded hopefulness to the borders of ab- 



IVILLIAM //. SEJVARD. 229 

surdity, that man was William H. Seward. But 
none of his hopes were absurd, and most of 
them were justified by the result, especially 
those larger hopes which had their root in his 
abiding trust in the goodness and power of 
God. His hopefulness was, no doubt, a strong 
element in his character, but it sustained him 
in labor and in peril, and it carried him tri- 
umphantly through. 

2. Another cjuality which specially fitted 
Mr. Seward for his work as Secretar)^ of State 
was the peculiar intellectual and moral training 
whicli he received when in the United States 
Senate, and which probably no other senator 
ever received, at least in the same degree. 
During the twelve years in which he was a mem- 
ber of that bod}', he was engaged in an unceas- 
ing contest with the representatives of the 
slaveholding party. He soon discovered that 
there were three things which he must always 
be doing: First, he must watch for anci mas- 
ter the plans Vv'hich these gentlemen were form- 
ing for the strengthening and the extending of 
the slave power; second, he must, with firm- 
ness and courage, expose these plans and de- 
monstrate their injustice; and, iJiird, he must 
perfectly command his temper. In all these 
directions he achieved a marked success. Of 



230 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

all the men of the North in the Senate, he best 
understood Southern politics. His reasonings 
were boldest and went deepest into the heart of 
things. Other men might speak of the barbar- 
ism of slavery, might move their hearers by an 
account of the cruel murder of a black woman 
in Georgia. To Mr. Seward such a fact would 
be as terrible as to any other, but in addressing 
Senators he chose rather to forewarn them of 
that *' irrepressible conflict" which was going on 
between two mighty forces, and which must 
continue until one or the other should be ex- 
tinguished. Others debated nice points of con- 
stitutional law. He did not undervalue such 
discussions, but he exhorted the Senate and 
the countr}' not to forget that there was a 
''higher law," which, like the sky, was above, 
and shut down over all other laws, and which 
would surely avenge itself, if violated. His 
command of temper was wonderful. During all 
the stormy debates of twelve years, he never 
uttered an unparliamentary word. He was 
never called to order; he was never threatened 
with personal violence; he was never challenged 
to fight a duel. And yet he was the most 
feared by the slaveholding class, and, I suspect, 
the most hated, as he was the most dangerous 
to their power. Now it so happened that it 



WILLIAM H, SEWARD. 231 

was these very qualities in which Mr. Seward 
had so severe a training in the Senate — the 
qualities of watchfulness, boldness in reasoning, 
and good temper — which were specially needed 
in the conduct of our foreign affairs during the 
war. This has in part been made apparent 
already, and it will become still more apparent, 
when I come to speak of what Mr. Seward act- 
ually accomplished. 

3. One more qualification which Mr. Seward 
brought to his work was intense moral feeling. 
This was both natural and acquired, and it ex- 
isted in connection with all questions where 
moral principle was involved. He had especially 
a deep hatred of slavery and of all injustice. 
He was an original abolitionist, and he could 
not have been anything else. His natural aver- 
sion to slavery was strengthened by opportuni- 
ties which he had had of seeing it. In the 
summer of 1835, when he was still a young 
man, he made a journey in Virginia with Mrs. 
Seward by private conveyance. Many scenes 
connected with slavery which he witnessed, 
were reported in letters to his friends at home. 
One of these I will quote as it is reproduced by 
Frederick W. Seward. It may help us to un- 
derstand by what influences was formed that 
unshaken steadiness of purpose against slavery 



232 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

which cliaracterized him throughout his hfe. 
His carriage had arrived at a country inn just 
at sunset. The writer says, "A cloud of dust 
was seen slowly coming down the road, from 
which proceeded a confused noise of moaning, 
weeping and shouting. Presently, reaching the 
gate of the stable yard, it disclosed itself. Ten 
naked little boys between six and twelve years 
old, tied together, two and two, by their wrists, 
were all fastened to a long rope, and followed 
by a tall, gaunt white man who with his long 
lash whipped up the sad and weary little pro- 
cession, drove it to the horse-trough to drink, 
and thence to a shed, where they lay down on 
the ground, and sobbed and moaned themselves 
to sleep. These were children gathered up at 
different plantations by the trader, and were to 
be driven down to Richmond to be sold at auc- 
tion and taken South." Here is no vocifera- 
tion, no violence of language, and yet we can 
feel the moral temperature of the man rising to 
a white heat. This intense moral feeling is 
always necessary to one who would face hostile 
public opinion, and it was especially needed by 
Mr. Seward when nearly all the foreign worlci 
with which he had to deal was against him. 
Any one who has attempted the advocacy of 
an unpopular cause has felt how strong was the 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 233 

temptation to surrender something" of principle, 
unless be was sustained by sturdy moral con- 
victions. He who moves in a cold atmosphere 
must be warmed from within. Mr. Seward 
found little favor for his cause among the great 
nations with which his Department held inter- 
course. The unsympathetic diplomatic atmos- 
phere, the cold worldliness of diplomatic dis- 
patches, the tone of polished skepticism w hich 
pervades too many of them as to there being 
any such thing as disinterested zeal for a cause 
among public men, all this would have disheart- 
ened and weakened and finally broken down any 
secretary of State during our Civil War who 
had not learned to love truth and righteousness 
more than the favor of the great. And now 
became evident the value of Mf. Seward's in- 
tense moral feeling. Upheld by strong moral 
convictions, he maintained a cheerful confidence 
to the end in the face of all the cavils and 
threats of unfriendly foreign powers. And as 
he believed tliat the war for and against the 
Union was indirectly a war against and for 
slavery, his hatred of that institution became 
one of the strongest elements of that moral in- 
tensity which sustained him in his efforts to 
protect the government against European inter- 
vention. 



234 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

III. But I pass on to inquire with what 
degree of success Mr. Seward performed the 
work which was given him to do. This inquiry 
will be the more interesting from the fact that 
almost the whole responsibility for success or 
failure will be Mr. Seward's. When President 
Lincoln organized his Cabinet, he informed his 
Secretary of State that the foreign affairs of 
the country would be left pretty much in his 
hands. From this policy the Presicient never 
deviated. Mr. Seward took no important step 
without first consulting the Chief Executive, 
but when he did so, President Lincoln almost 
invariably expressed his approval of the course 
which the judgment of the secretary favored. 
Whether therefore we shall find occasion for 
praise or criticism, each must be alike bestowed 
upon the minister for foreign affairs. 

Of the heavy burden which was imposed 
upon Mr. Seward by the war, that portion 
which constituted the great task, which was the 
vital piece of work, he perfectly accomplished. 
He did prevent the recognition of the- inde- 
pendence of the South by the great powers of 
Europe, and did restrain them from military in- 
tervention in our war. This he effected mainly 
by the single instrumentality of earnest, per- 
sistent, and conclusive reasoning. To be con- 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 235 

vinced of this, you have only to read his 
dispatches to Mr. Adams and Mr. Dayton, our 
representatives at London and Paris, and to our 
ministers at some other foreign courts in the 
early part of the war. It is difficult to say 
which is most complete, his affirmative argu- 
ment or his argument for refutation. He pre- 
sents arguments from the reason of the thing 
— from the inner nature of national organiza- 
tion — from international law — from precedents 
— from sound policy — from the previouspractice 
of the government to which he writes and the 
principles upon which it is founded— -from con- 
siderations, of its future security — from the 
danger, as a precedent, of interfering with the 
established order in friendly powers. In letter 
after letter he invites his correspondents to 
consider what is lawful, what is just, what is 
consistent with their past action, and what is 
safe for their future welfare. He employs the 
arguijientiim ad Jioniineui and, \\'ith England 
and France, the arguinciituui ad rcglnaui and 
the argiinientum ad ii)ipcratorein. If Arch- 
bisiiop Whately were alive and were to prepare 
a new edition of his Logic, he would discover 
that there is not one worthy form of argument 
mentioned in his work which could not be 
abundantly illustrated from the dispatches of Mr. 



236 LECTURES A ND ESS A YS. 

Seward in pleading the cause of his countr\\ 
In these varied modes of reasoning, he persisted, 
day after day, week after week, month after month, 
and year after year. It is of no avail that great 
ministers tell him that his line of argument is 
not satisfactory. He onl}^ breaks forth afresh. 
For the hundredth tiine he demands, why it is 
not satisfactory, and theii' work all has to be 
done over again. He commands his ambassa- 
dors to wait upon ministers of state and read 
his dispatches to them and furnish them with 
copies. It may probabl}' be said that there 
is no mode of argument or ap[)eal that could 
promote his object which he has failed to 
employ. 

Mr. Seward's dispatches to different courts 
were not mere repetitions of each other. He 
sent out very few of what are known in diplo- 
macy as "identical notes." The argument ad- 
dressed to each nation was adapted to its 
history, character, and circumstances. Many 
examples of this might be presented, "did time 
permit. I will mention but one or two. So 
many grave suggestions in regard to American 
affairs had been made by English officials that 
it seems almost like a jocose retort, although 
not so intended, when Mr. Seward called the 
attention of Lord John Russell to a growing 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 237 

body of opinion in England, as expressed 
through pubHc meetings and the liberal press, 
which was hostile to the policy pursued by the 
government toward America, and which, acting 
with other forces, might overthrow the minis- 
try of which his lordship was a member. To 
both France and England, complaining of the 
lack of raw material for their cotton industries, 
Mr. Seward replied: The remedy is simple. 
Withdraw your recognition of the South as a 
belligerent, exert your great moral influence on 
the side of the United States, and in a very 
short time peace will return, our ports will be 
opened, and abundant supplies of cotton will 
re-awaken the hum of your millions ofspindles. 
It may be mentioned here that the dispatches 
which Mr. Sewarci received from our represen- 
tatives abroad were generally despondent in 
their tone. It was the result of the perverted 
public opinion at the courts where they resided. 
It was Mr. Seward's duty, by assiduous labor, 
to supply information which should revive hope 
in the minds of his ministers, and which they 
could use in disabusing the minds of those to 
whom they were accredited. It was as a part 
of this task that he constantly sent out in the 
dispatches from his office a sort of diary of 
the principal facts of the war in order that his 



238 LECTURE^ AND ESS A YS. 

correspondents mii^ht have a history of events 
as fair and accurate as, with the means at his 
command, he could make it. In this way they 
were protected against the sensational and ex- 
travagant reports which reached them from 
other sources. These diaries probably form to 
this day the best strictly contemporaneous his- 
tory of the war which can be found. 

For a time Mr. Seward's reasonings with for- 
eign powers did not seem to produce much 
effect. But at length, it became evident that an 
impression had been made. Repeatedly France 
and England seemed on the point of breaking 
the blockade or of acknowledging the inde- 
pendence of the Confederacy. As often as this 
occurred, Mr. Seward presented some argument, 
or made some suggestion, or sounded some 
alarm which averted the catastrophe. They 
both, but especially France, very much desired 
to acknowledge the nationality of the South, 
but the}' never could quite get ready to do it. 
One more dispatch alwa3'S had to be written. 
I have long thought of Mr. Seward's success in 
pireventing some dangerous form of interven- 
tion from the powers of Europe as the greatest 
triumph of simple and persistent reasoning in 
political history. 

It should be added that Mr. Seward's reason- 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 239 

ing was strongly supported by certain shrewd 
but honorable expedients. Two or three ex- 
amples of this it may not be amiss to mention. 
And here I follow in several particulars, the 
authority of Mr. Frederick Seward. 

I have already spoken of the predisposition 
of France and England, from commercial and 
political reasons, when the war began, not to 
think well of the national cause. It was due to 
this predisposition that the Confederate com- 
missioners, through the private opportunities 
which they enjoyed, gained the ear of the 
Foreign Office in those countries in advance of 
us. The social .influences in Paris and London 
were against our country, and the press of those 
capitals abounded in articles attacking President 
Lincoln's government. Our ministers were for- 
bidden by the etiquette of their position to 
write for the newspapers or to engage in private 
social effort in the interest of the United States. 
Mr. Seward therefore decided to send abroad 
three private citizens of experience and ability 
— unofficial agents — whose duty it should be to 
send communications to the press, to reply to 
Confederate attacks, to seek interviews with 
leading men in business and in the professions, 
and with members of Parliament and of the 
French Chambers, and to be instant in season 



240 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

and out of season to set the American cause 
right in all intelligent circles. He chose for 
this purpose Thurlow Weed, a prominent and 
skillful Republican politician in New York, to 
meet political leaders; Archbishop Hughes to 
plead our cause with influential Catholics in 
Paris; and Bishop Mcllvaine of Ohio to visit 
the prelates of the English Church. These 
gentlemen proceeded at once to Europe, and a 
marked change in public opinion was soon ob- 
served as the result of their activities there. It 
became evident tliat they were admirably fitted 
for their trust. 

In the early summer of 1861, France and 
England, acting jointly, sent instructions to 
their two ministers in Washington to wait on 
Mr. Seward and make to him a joint communi- 
cation to the effect that those great powers 
would act together in all matters pertaining to 
the American war, including the possible rec- 
ognition of the Confederates. ' One morning, 
as Mr. Seward was sitting in his office, a mes- 
senger announced that the Ministers of France 
and England were in the anteroom and wished 
to see the Secretary together. Mr. Seward had 
anticipated something of this kind, and he told 
the messenger to show them into an adjoining 
room. An account of the interview which 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 241 

followed I quote from Mr. Frederick Seward, 
who was probably in the building at the 
time: — 

"A few minutes later, as the two ministers 
were seated, side by side, on the sofa, the door 
opened and Seward entered. Smiling and 
shaking his head, he said: 'No, no, no; this 
will never do. I cannot see you in that way.' 
The ministers rose to greet him. 'True,' said 
one of them, 'it is unusual; but we are obey- 
ing our instructions.' 'And at least,' said the 
other, 'you will allow us to state the object of 
our visit.' 'No,' said Seward, 'we must start 
right about it whatever it is. M. Mercier, will 
you do me the favor to come and dine with me 
this evening.'^ There we can talk over your 
business at leisure. And if Lord Lyons will 
step into my room Vv^ith me now, we will dis- 
cuss what he has to say to me.' ' If you refuse 
to see us together,' began the French envoy, 
with a courteous smile and a shrug. ' Certainly 
I do refuse to see you together, though I will 
see either of you separately, with pleasure, here 
or elsewhere.' " 

The plan for a joint communication then and 
there broke down, and was never again at- 
tempted. The probability is that both these 
ministers were severely censured from home for 



242 LECTURES, AND ESS A YS. 

letting go an opportunity. Mr. Seward was 
right. On the face of it, it would not seem to 
make much difference whether what these men 
had to say was presented separately or jointly. 
But there was great difference in the moral 
effect. When France and England undertook 
to make a joint communication to Mr. Seward 
relating to the Civil War, they knew that their 
act was in the nature of a threat, and would be 
everywhere so regarded; and their hope was 
that, as a threat, it would be effective. They 
could not believe that the United States would 
long dare to disregard any suggestion made to 
them by two such powers acting together. 
Had Mr. Seward submitted to receive the joint 
communication, it would have been ascribed to 
fear, and would have had a discouraging effect 
throughout our country. But by refusing to 
receive it, he awakened the sympathy, and 
quickened the courage of the whole American 
people. There was not a soldier in camp who 
got newspapers from home, or heard the rumors 
from the Department of State, who was not 
proud at the thought that though his shoddy 
coat might be in rags, and his paper shoes com- 
ing to pieces, and his food stale, he had a sec- 
retary for foreign affairs who had the spirit 
to look the ambassadors of the two greatest 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 243 

powers in the world iti the face and tell them 
that he would not be bullied. Mr. Seward was 
never wanting in exhibitions of spirit, when 
these were what his cause demanded. This 
same year, in writing to France, he said: 
*' Foreign intervention would oblige us to treat 
those who should attempt it as allies of the in- 
surrectionary part}/, and to carry on the war 
against them as enemies. The case would only 
be aggravated, if several European states should 
combine in that intervention. The President 
and people of the United States deem the 
Union, which would then be at stake, worth all 
the cost and all the sacrifice of a contest with 
the world in arms, if such a contest should 
prove inevitable." 

The spring of 1863 was a time of special dis- 
couragement to our Government, for the reason 
that France and England seemed at last about 
to attempt the long-threatened military inter- 
vention. But as the summer opened, an event 
occurred which became the subject of talk in 
all the diplomatic and political circles of Europe 
and America. A fleet of Russian ships of war 
entered the harbor at New York. It was a 
peaceful fleet, and it always remained so. There 
was nothing in its presence in our waters, if it 
was agreeable to the United States, that ought 



244 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

to give offense to any other nation. It is com- 
mon for the great powers to exhibit their war 
frigates in the ports of friendly governments, 
especially those with which they have commer- 
cial relations. To be sure, Russia had never 
sent so many ships to our shores before, and 
perhaps never would again. But there is no 
principle of international courtesy which limits 
the number of ships which may go on such a 
peaceful errand. Such was the talk about the 
matter. But there were two places in the 
world where the visit of the Russian fleet was 
the subject of painful curiosity. These were the 
foreign office in Paris and the foreign office in 
London. France and England were not quite 
easy in conscience. By the treaty of Paris, 
ratified in 1856, after the Crimean war, the two 
Western powers had inflicted a great humilia- 
tion upon Russia in prohibiting her from sailing 
her own ships of war in her own waters — those 
of the Black Sea. Russia submitted to this at 
the time, for it was her only alternative. Her 
great Chancellor said, "Russia never sulks; she 
meditates." France and England had been 
watching her ever since, fearing that at some 
inconvenient moment, she would appear in the 
field as the ally of an enemy. And now what 
meant this Russian fleet in New York harbor .!* 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 245 

Was it the result of Prince Gortschakoff's med- 
itation ? And what would // do, if they attacked 
the line of the Yankee blockade? No one 
could answer. They might have addressed a 
note to the Russian Chancellor asking for an 
explanation. But to demand an explanation 
from a friendly power of an act perfectly proper 
in itself, is a greater offense than any such act 
ever can be. Doubtless they telegraphed their 
legations in different parts of the world, but the 
answer would always be, "We have no infor- 
mation." Early in winter, the squadron ap- 
peared in the Potomac, and visited Washington. 
Speculation broke out afresh. But no official 
explanation was ever made; perhaps none ever 
will be. It seems probable that no record of the 
purpose of the visit can be found either in Wash- 
ington or St. Petersburg. All that I have been 
able to discover in our diplomatic correspondence 
relating to the subject, consists of a few mutual 
expressions of courtesy such as are usual in 
connection with a visit from ships of war of a 
friendly power. This is all we know. There 
are some things further, however, which it is 
pretty safe to conjecture. Mr. Seward perfectly 
understood the irritated feeling of Russia to- 
wards France and England, and the apprehen- 
sions of these powers in regard to Russia; 



246 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

'and would gladly avail himself of the strained 
relations of these governments to protect 
his country. The appearance of the Russian 
fleet was a splendid counter-irritant to the 
disturbed mental condition of France and 
England about our blockade. It was a whole- 
some diversion for their minds, anci gave them 
something else to think of. It enabled them 
to defer to a more convenient season, as they 
had often done before, their plan to break the 
blockade. The Russian squadron remained 
about six months. When at length it had 
sailed, and the two powers might once more 
have considered their plan, the Union arms had 
made such progress that the cause of military in- 
tervention died a natural death. What I believe 
about the visit of the fleet is, that it was agreed 
upon in a private conversation between the 
Russian minister and Mr. Seward in Mr. Sew- 
ard's back office. After that, everything would 
take care of itself. A mere hint from the min- 
ister to his chief at home would be all that 
would be needed. If Prince Gortschakoff had 
cherished no resentment, a little native sense of 
humor would have been enough to make him 
relish the suggestion and put it in practice. 

Such are some of the expedients which Mr. 
Seward employed to gain a hearing for the 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 247 

arguments which he addressed to France and 
England. But better perhaps to that end than 
any expedient, was the disposition which he 
showed to be just and to do right in any case 
where an officer of our Government had been in 
the wrong in deaHng with any interest of Eng- 
land or other foreign power. One example of 
this will suffice. In November, 1861, Captain 
Wilkes, of the United States Steamer San Ja- 
cinto, had stopped upon the high seas the British 
Royal Mail Steamer, Trent, had arrested upon 
her decks Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell, the Con- 
federate commissioners, and had conveyed them 
as prisoners on board the San Jacinto. The act 
was very popular in the United States. The 
newspapers teemed with praise of Captain 
Wilkes. Here, at last, was a man with the 
true American spirit. The House of Repre- 
sentatives pas,sed a resolution requesting the 
President to present to Captain Wilkes a gold 
medal with suitable devices expressive of the 
high sense entertained by Congress of his good 
conduct. President Lincoln was at first dis- 
posed to sustain the gallant naval officer. Up 
to that time his administration had done so few 
things that were popular, that it, perhaps, 
seemed to him a great pity to lose so excellent 
an opportunity to gain general applause. Mr.' 



248 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

Seward, however, upon carefully studying the 
question, reached the conclusion that the act 
was an unlawful invasion of neutral rights, and 
must be disavowed, and that the prisoners must 
be returned under the British flag. He accord- 
ingly prepared a dispatch to that effect addressed 
to the British minister. President Lincoln had 
said to him that, if he would prepare a paper 
in favor of surrendering the men, the President 
would prepare one on the other side, and they 
would compare views the next day. It was, 
perhaps, the only instance in which the Presi- 
dent attempted to write a dispatch upon a 
question of foreign affairs. When they met, 
the President, good and candid man that he 
was, said to his Secretary, that he had not been 
able to prepare an argument that satisfied his 
own oiind, and that Mr. Seward was right. 
The prisoners were returned, and went on their 
errand of mischief. But Mr. Seward, by this act 
of disinterestedness, secured the lasting respect of 
the British ministers, as is evident from the tone 
of all their dispatches to him; and he secured an 
increased willingness on their part to listen to 
his arguments against intervention. Moreover 
he regained the favor of his own countrymen. On 
reflection the people made up their minds that 
the war they had in hand was enough for the 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 249 

present. The House resolution in regard to the 
gold medal for Captain Wilkes was indefinitely 
postponed after it reached the Senate, and that 
officer was left to the sole reward which conies 
from the consciousness of having done what he 
honestly thought to be his duty. That reward 
I believe he had. He honestly thought that 
the persons of Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell were 
contraband of war, and that the Trent was as 
really guilty of violating law as if she were 
carrying military stores to the rebels. His mis- 
take was in going to sea without a copy of 
Woolsey's " International Law" in his trunk. 
That he had the courage of his convictions 
there can be no doubt. Commander Williams, 
of the Trent, excused himself for surrender- 
ing Mr. Mason and his associate on the ground 
that the San Jacinto was only two hundred yards 
distant, that her ship's company was at quarters, 
that her ports were open and her tampions out. 
The reasons appear to be satisfactory. Captain 
Wilkes doubtless meant business. 

But besides averting French and English in- 
tervention, Mr. Seward successfully performed 
the other work which has been mentioned as 
brought upon him by the war. He never 
ceased to oppose the French occupation of 
Mexico until it was brought to an end. As 



250 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

early as September 26, 1863, he wrote a dis- 
patch, in which he made it sufficiently clear to 
the French government, that, if the enterprise 
against Mexico was not abandoned, it must lead 
to war between France and the United States. 
It required no small degree of courage in Mr. 
Seward to take this ground at a time when the 
national life of his own country was in so much 
peril. This attitude he maintained until the 
close of the Civil War, and then became still 
more urgent. He gave Napoleon plainly to 
understand that the time had come for the 
evacuation of Mexico by the French army, and 
early in 1867, that event was accomplished. 
The German historian Mliller holds that it was 
the diplomatic ''either — or" of the United 
States — that is, "either leave or fight" — by 
which this result was reached. 

In his diplomatic contest with the English 
government in regard to the injury done by 
Confederate vessels built in English ports, he 
obtained all the success which was possible 
under the circumstances. He did not wholly 
prevent, because no man could wholly have 
prevented, the building and sale of such vessels 
to the Confederacy; but the suit which he con- 
stantly urged for compensation for damage done 
to commerce by these rovers of the sea, was 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 251 

pressed with such intelligence and spirit, and was 
brought so near to a successful issue at the 
close of his administration, that early in the ad- 
ministration of his successor, it was settled by 
a treaty under which an award for damages was 
paid by England to the United States of fifteen 
and a half millions of dollars. 

Mr. Seward's success in performing the ordi- 
dary duties of his department during the eight 
years of his service there, has been generally 
recognized. We cannot dwell upon it. It may 
be enough to say that during this period he 
made forty useful treaties with foreign powers. 
Among these were a treaty with England for 
the suppression of the slave trade, one with 
Germany for the protection of the rights of 
naturalized citizens, and another with Russia for 
the purchase of Alaska. Had Mr. Seward had 
no duties to perform growing out of war, I 
think that history must still have assigned him 
an important place among useful ministers 
of State. But when we consider both the 
work of peace and the work of war which he 
did, we must rank him with the great rulers of 
men — with Pericles — with the Duke of Sully 
— with Oxenstiern — with the elder Pitt — 
with Sir Robert Peel — with Prince Bismarck — 
with Count Cavour. To apply to him a single 



252 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

sentence used by the historian Mommsen in 
reference to Hannibal, "He was a great man." 
Mr. Seward's reputation will grow with time. 
His contemporaries were and are too near him 
to get a just or complete view of his work. 
Men who have traveled among the declivities of 
a famous mountain have sometimes expressed 
their disappointment. They saw some noble 
and attractive objects, but some also that ap- 
peared mysterious, dangerous, or repellent — 
some that were obscured by mists, or half hid- 
den behind projecting crags. They saw broken, 
imperfect, and unsymmetrical parts, but no- 
where saw the mountain. It was not until 
they had descended, and traveled far away upon 
the plain below, or sailed out upon the neigh- 
boring ocean, that, looking back, they saw the 
mountain come out in its grand proportions — 
in its symmetry and unity — against the horizon. 
A multitude of parts which had seemed to be 
a rough, disorderly, inexplicable scene, are now 
rounded into a beautiful whole. They see how 
solidly the mountain's broad base rests upon 
the earth, and how serenely its blue height re- 
poses in the heavens. What distance does for 
the mountain, time does for great men, and will 
do for Mr. Seward. As yet, he is too large to 
be seen at a single view. Many parts of his 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 253 

life seem imperfect, disconnected, inconsistent, 
and to many parts that should appear noble, 
men's eyes are blinded by the mists of preju- 
dice. But time will clear the mists, and soften 
the outlines, and restore the proportions, and 
bring out the massive unity, until his character 
shall stand out upon the mighty field of history, 
the grand and majestic object that it is. 

His rounded life will some day win 
"A glory from its being far; 
And orb into the perfect star 
We saw not when we moved therein." 



THE HAYES-TILDEN ELECTORAL 
COMMISSION. 

[ATLANTIC MONTHLY, OCTOBER, I 893.] 

The Forty- fourth Congress assembled in its 
second session on the 4th of December, 1876, 
under circumstances which caused unusual so- 
h'citude. A presidential election had been held 
in November, and the result was contested. 
There were 369 electoral votes, of which 185 
were necessar}^ to a choice. Of the 369 votes, 
Samuel J. Tilden confessedly had 184, lacking 
but one of the required majority. Rutherford 
B. Hayes had only 163 undisputed votes, but 
his friends claimed, in addition, the votes of 
Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina, 
with an aggregate of 22 electors, which would 
make his total vote 185, precisely the number 
needed to secure his inauguration. It was thus 
necessary that the votes of all these disputed 
States should be counted for General Hayes to 
make him President, whereas, should Mr. Til- 
den crain but one of these, or but one vote from 
one of them, the victory would be his. 



ELECTORAL COMMLSSLON OF 1877. 255 

From the States just named there were two 
sets of returns, one favorable to General Hayes, 
the other to Mr. Tilden. The Hayes or Re- 
publican returns had, in general, the character 
or quality that we call regular, that is, they were 
made up and forwarded by officials regularly 
appointed for that purpose by political organi- 
zations recognized by national authority as 
state governments, and actually holding power 
as such. The Republicans contended that, in 
counting the electoral vote, we could not go be- 
hind these regular returns ; that to do so would 
be an invasion of the constitutional sphere ofthe 
States; that the Constitution expressly declares 
that each State shall appoint its electors " in 
sucli manner as the legislature thereof may 
direct;" that thus the State had a right to de- 
termine how its electors should be chosen, who 
they were when chosen, and how the report of 
this fact should be made. To this the Demo- 
crats responded that these returns were a pro- 
duct of fraud and dishonesty; that, in preparing 
them, the vote of whole precincts, parishes, and 
counties had been thrown out in order to se- 
cure Hayes electors; that fraud vitiates every- 
thing; that no pretended States rights should 
serve as a shelter to fraud; furthermore, that 
the State governments, so called, were not really 



256 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

such; that they did not represent the people of 
those States, but were themselves the product 
of fraud and corruption, and were kept in place 
only by what was called the "moral influence" 
of Federal bayonets. The Republicans retorted 
that the character of State governments could 
be denied to these organizations only by rob- 
bing the freedmen of the ballot guaranteed 
to them by the Constitution, and that when the 
votes of precincts, parishes, and counties had 
been thrown out, it was done in obedience to 
law, which commanded that this course should 
be pursued in communities where terrorism had 
been exercised to such an extent as seriously 
to affect the result. 

Thus the issue was made up. Members of 
Congress came together feeling strongly them- 
selves and reflecting the strong feeling which 
prevailed in the country. The eight millions 
of voters who had taken part in the election 
had been about equally divided. Those of each 
party were convinced that they had gained an 
honest victory, and were indignant with those 
of the other party for denying or even doubting 
it. The feeling of mutual hostility had been 
greatly intensified by party leaders, orators, and 
presses. In some of our cities it look ah the 
terrors of a police court to keep Democrats and 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 257 

Republicans from breaking the peace. Mem- 
bers of Congress who had begun by being 
angry on their own account, and who felt under 
some obligation to represent the anger of their 
constituents, exploded when they began to dis- 
cuss the subject with their opponents, at the 
hotels and in the club rooms of the city of 
Washington. It took quiet and sensible men 
some time to learn that they could gain noth- 
ing by arguing the question with those of op- 
posite political views, and men of different 
stamp never did learn it. 

Under these unfavorable conditions — condi- 
tions such as had never before followed a presi- 
dential election in this country — Congress and 
the nation approached the counting of the elec- 
toral vote. The practical question in all men's 
minds, and on nearly all men's tongues, was, 
by whom shall it be decided who has been 
elected President of the United States.? Who 
shall determine what are the proper electoral 
votes, distinguishing between those that are 
genuine and those that are spurious } Who 
shall count the votes and declare the result? 
Where is the tribunal to which this issue can 
be submitted, whose authority will not be 
questioned, and whose decision will be accepted 
as final.-^ 



258 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

There were many theories upon this subject 
of the count, but none of them seemed to be 
practicable. The only light which the Consti- 
tution sheds upon it is in these words: "The 
President of the Senate shall, in the presence of 
the Senate and House of Representatives, open 
all the certificates, and the vote shall then be 
counted." By whom .? We are nowhere ex- 
pressly told, and hence, wide scope is given for 
the partisan imagination. It is indeed added 
that the person having a majority of all the 
electoral votes shall be President; but no fur- 
ther aid is furnished us in our effort to ascertain 
what authority is to decide who has, or has not, 
this majority. 

The theory prevalent among Republicans 
was that the counting should be done by the 
President of the Senate. For this theory it 
was urged that precedent was in its favor, the 
President of the Senate having generally counted 
and declared the vote since the formation of 
the government; and further, it was asked who 
would so naturally count the vote as he who 
opens the certificates containing the statement 
of it in the presence of the two Houses.? Many 
names, great in the history of the Republic, 
were quoted as authorities on the side of this 
theory, but, to say nothing of other objections, 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 259 

there was one practical difficulty which was 
fatal to it. The President of the Senate was a 
Republican, whose opinions were presumably 
known, and there probably was not a Demo- 
crat in the United States who would willingly 
have submitted to his decision. 

Another theory which was advocated by a 
portion of the Democratic party was that the 
House of Representatives should do the count- 
ing, the Senate being present merely as spec- 
tators. It was argued that inasmuch as the 
Constitution lays upon the House the duty of 
choosing a President, in case there has been a 
failure to elect by the people, it is necessary 
that the House, by previously counting the 
vote, should ascertain whether such failure ex- 
ists. But the House of Representatives was 
Democratic by a large majority, and it would 
have been as unsatisfactory to Republicans to 
have the vote declared by the House as it 
would have been to Democrats to have it de- 
clared by the President of the Senate. 

A third theory, deservedly received with 
more favor than either of the preceding, was 
that the counting should be done by both 
Houses, each having equal authority and re- 
sponsibility with the other. The practical dif- 
ficulty here was that the two Houses were of 



26o LECTURRS AND ESS A YS. 

opposite politics; that each would negative the 
action of the other, and that hence no result 
could be reached. A colleague of mine in the 
House, Mr. Charles Foster, afterward Governor 
of Ohio, and recently Secretary of the Treasury, 
proposed another solution of the problem 
which I thought a good one. He introduced a 
bill providing that Congress should submit the 
case to the Supreme Court, and that its decision 
should be held to be conclusive. But this plan 
was unacceptable to the whole body of Demo- 
crats, and, I suppose, could not have received a 
single Democratic vote, for the philosophical 
reason that of the nine judges at that time on 
the Supreme Bench, there were but two of 
Democratic antecedents. 

I will mention but one more theory. 

A few Democrats of an ancient and harmless 
school were delighted with a discovery which 
they had made in the writings of Jefferson. It 
appeared that that great man had suggested 
that the electoral vote should be counted by 
the two Houses, not as separate organizations, 
but as merged in one convention, in which the 
vote of a Senator should count for precisely as 
much as the vote of a Representative. These 
amiable theorists would have had us agree upon 
this plan as a happy method of settling all our 



ELECTORAL COMMLSSION OF 1877. 261 

difficulties. Now, in the Forty-fourth Congress 
there were 74 Senators and 292 Representa- 
tives, the latter being almost four times as 
numerous as the former. Hence, in all ques- 
tions requiring the action of both Houses, the 
vote of one Senator was about equal to that 
of four Representatives. The Jeffersonian idea 
might have proved to be a great success, could 
our friends have made it appear agreeable to 74 
Senators, representing, many of them, half the 
population and resources of great and proud 
States, to submit to the immense diminution of 
power implied in their being placed, in the pro- 
posed convention, individually on a level with 
members of the other House. But as there 
was a great deal of human nature in the coun- 
try that year, especially in the Halls of Con- 
gress, this theory of the past soon proved 
to be impracticable, and was heard of no more. 
It was evident that although Jefferson might 
have been responsible for the original sugges- 
tion, he was not responsible for the time and 
method of its application. 

Such were the theories that were under dis- 
cussion, and such were the obstacles' which they 
encountered. It is now evident that the count- 
ing of the electoral vote could not have been 
safely committed to any of the agencies which 



262 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

were ordinarily recognized by different parties 
as the constitutional and proper tribunals for 
the performance of that duty. The responsi- 
bility could not have been laid upon any of these 
agencies v/ithout giving a positive advantage to 
one of the two parties, and thus encountering 
stubborn resistance from the other. As each 
party had control of one House of Congress, no 
plan could be successful in which both parties did 
not concur. But that Congress should promptly 
adopt some method of adjusting differences 
was demanded by the peace of the country. 
The situation w^as serious. Some thoughtful 
men felt that perhaps the greatest peril that 
the Republic had encountered was not that of 
the Civil War. It w^as repeatedly stated on 
the floor of the House of Representatives, and 
apparently believed by the majority, that if the 
Republican party should proceed, through the 
President of the Senate, to count the votes of 
the disputed States, and declare them for Gen- 
eral Hayes, the House would then proceed to 
elect Mr. Tilden, or to count the vote and de- 
clare him elected by the nation. There would 
then have been a dual presidency, a divided 
army and navy, a divided people, and probably 
civil war. What plan could be devised to save 
the country from the evils that threatened it.-^ 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 263 

The answer was not easy. Everywhere 
about the Capitol were seen thoughtful and 
troubled faces. The short winter days seemed 
gloomy, and the hours of wakefulness in the 
night were prolonged by anxious thought. 
Things were constantly occurring which re- 
vealed the extent of both the difficulty and the 
danger. One day a leading Democrat went 
across the House to General Garfield's seat, 
and, repeating a prediction which he had pre- 
viously made, said that, within a hundred days, 
people would be cutting each other's throats. 
Republicans who happened to overhear the 
conversation did not, perhaps, regard the state- 
ment as improbable. My colleague from Ohio, 
Mr, Banning, a man kindly disposed, declared 
in a speech, that, if the Republicans should at- 
tempt to carry out their theory of the election, 
and if a part of the army with eighty rounds 
of ammunition, and the navy, should be or- 
dered to support them, the people would put 
them all down. Mr. Goode, of Virginia, one 
of the ablest and best of the Southern members, 
said, upon the floor of the House, that, if the 
two parties went on in their respective courses, 
they would soon reach a point where one or the 
other must make an ignominious surrender, or 
they must fight. "Are gentlemen prepared for 



264 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

the latter alternative?" he exclaimed. A shout 
of ''Yes" went up from the Republican side of 
the House. 

In view of such a state of feeling as this, it 
was a satisfaction to know that, early in the 
session, broad-minded and patriotic men were 
beginning to study the difficult problem. It was 
thought well, in the first place, that the House 
should be better informed as to the extent of 
its own rights and duties. To this end a com- 
mittee was appointed to inquire and report 
upon the subject. The Speaker was pleased to 
name the writer of this article as a member of 
the committee. My first feeling was one of 
gratification at the compliment. But, upon re- 
flection, it seemed so plain to me that the com- 
mittee should be composed of great constitu- 
tional lawyers, that, as soon as the House 
adjourned, I hastened to the Speaker and 
tendered my declination, which was accepted. 
A few days later, he filled the vacancy by ap- 
pointing Judge McDill, of Iowa, who creditably 
performed the duties of the place. Some good 
work was done. Mr. Seelye, afterwards Presi- 
dent of Amherst College, belonged to the com- 
mittee, as did also Mr. Burchard, of Illinois, a 
man of much varied knowledge, and since Di- 
rector of the Mint. Both majority and minority 



ELECTORAL COMMLSSION OF 1877. 265 

reports were made, which served, in a measure, 
as guides to the respective parties in the House 
in their subsequent labors. 

On the 7th of December, Mr. McCrary, of 
Iowa, introduced a resolution that a committee 
should be appointed by the Speaker, to act in 
conjunction with any similar committee ap- 
pointed by the Senate in preparing and report- 
ing some legislative measure for counting the 
electoral vote. This resolution was referred to 
the Committee on the Judiciary, and on the 14th 
of December was reported back to the House 
and passed. Notice of this action was at once 
sent to the Senate. On the 15th of December, 
a resolution of like character was offered in that 
body by Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, providing 
for the appointment of a committee of the Sen- 
ate to act with that of the House. On the i8th 
this resolution was passed by the Senate, and 
the same day the House was notified of the fact. 
These committees of the Senate and House 
were appointed December the 21st and 2 2d 
respectively, Mr. Edmunds being chairman of 
the Senate committee, and Mr. Payne, of Ohio, 
since Senator Payne, chairman of that of the 
House. P^ach committee consisted of seven 
members. P'^requent sessions of these com- 
mittees, at first separate and afterward joint 



266 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

sessions, with much laborious investigation and 
much discussion of the merits of different plans, 
were held from this time until January i8, 
1877, when a carefully matured bill, with an 
accompanying report, was submitted by Mr. 
Edmunds to the Senate. The report was 
signed by all the fourteen members of the two 
committees A\ith the exception of Senator IVIor- 
ton, of Indiana. The bill was soon launched 
upon the stormy sea of Congressional debate, 
to take its chances in the hurricane conflict of 
prejudice and opinion. 

The gentlemen of this joint committee — a 
joint committee we may henceforth call it, 
although it was not strictly such, the jealousy 
of the Houses having forbidden the use of that 
designation — the gentlemen of this committee 
spoke with some reserve, as the proprieties de- 
manded, of their month's work in the commit- 
tee room. Some of them, howe\er, did divulge 
to personal friends that they had found their 
task to be delicate, difficult, laborious, trying 
to the patience, pro\oking, and often very dis- 
couraging. Many plans had been, of course, 
rejected. One of these would sometimes break 
upon their minds like an inspiration, and fill them 
with hope, only to encounter, after a morning's 
debate, some insuperable objection and be 



ELECTORAL COMMLSSION OF 1S77. 267 

abandoned. Communications which they re- 
ceived from tlie outside showed with what jeal- 
ousy they were watched by the two parties, 
both in Congress and throughout the country. 
They soon discovered that nothing but defeat 
could be expected for any measure they should 
adopt which did not exhibit absolute impar- 
tiality toward the two parties. To quote from a 
speech of Mr. Thurman in the Senate, "It was 
perfectly clear that any bill that gave the least 
advantage, ay, the weight of the dust in the 
balance, to either party, could not become the 
law of the land." To make the plan accepta- 
ble, it must be such that no one could give 
even a sensible guess beforehand as to what re- 
sult it would produce. 

The principal points of the bill, as finally 
reported to the two Houses, were the following: 
The Senate and House were to meet in the 
Hall of the House, as formerly, for counting 
the electoral vote. The President of the Sen- 
ate was to be the presiding officer, and the 
vote was to be counted by him, or by the tell- 
ers under his direction, in accordance with 
precedent, until some State might be reached 
to whose vote objections should be offered. 
The objections should then be put in proper 
form, and, if there were but one return from 



268 LECTURED AND ESS A YS. 

the State which had occasioned the disagree- 
ment, the Houses should separate, and each 
House should render a decision upon the objec- 
tions submitted to it. The Houses should then 
again meet, and the result of their action be 
announced. The vote of the State, which, it 
will be observed, had but a single return, should 
then be counted, unless it appeared that both 
Houses had concurred in rejecting it. But 
when, in the progress of the count, a State 
might be reached from which there was more 
than one return, the presiding officer should 
call for objections to any or all of the returns. 
The objections, when they had been prepared, 
together with all the returns and accompanyirig 
papers, should then be submitted to the judg- 
ment of a Commission which should be consti- 
tuted as follows: The Commission was to con- 
sist of fifteen members, of whom five were to 
be Representatives, five Senators, and five Jus- 
tices of the Supreme Court; the five Represen- 
tatives upon the Commission to be chosen by 
the House, and the five Senators by the Senate. 
Of the five Justices, four were virtually desig- 
nated by the bill, and these four were to elect 
the fifth. It was assumed by common consent, 
and was agreed by caucuses of the two parties 
in both House and Senate, that of the five 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 269 

Representatives to be chosen, three would be 
Democrats and two Republicans; that of the 
five Senators, three would be Republicans and 
two Democrats. Of the four Justices that were 
indicated in the bill, two were of Democratic 
antecedents and two of Republican. The spirit 
of the bill required that the fifth man whom 
these Justices were to select should be neutral 
as regards the two parties, or, if possible, 
should be half Republican and half Democrat. 
Should this arrangement be perfectly carried 
out, there would, as the reader will see, be just 
seven and a half Republicans and seven and a 
half Democrats on the Commission. And yet, 
as the number of the Commissioners was an 
uneven number, a decision must be reached; 
for, however desirous the fifteenth member 
might be of rendering a decision on both sides, 
the absolute simplicity of the human will in 
its action would have prevented his doing so. 
He must decide wholly for or against each re- 
turn from a State. 

The bill provided that whatever powers were 
possessed by the two Houses of Congress, in 
counting the electoral vote, should also be pos- 
sessed by the Commission. Should it be asked 
whether the Commission had power to go be- 
hind the returns made by the State officers, the 



270 LECTURED AND ESSA YS. 

answer was that it had not, unless the two 
Houses had such power. If it were asked 
whether the Commission was forbidden to 
exercise such power, the answer was, not un- 
less the Houses were so forbidden. Indeed, 
the Senate, under the leadership of Mr. Ed- 
munds, voted down, during the same hour of 
one day, two antagonistic propositions upon 
this subject; namely, the proposition that the 
Commission should have the right to go be- 
hind the returns from a State, and the proposi- 
tion that it should not have such right. Beyond 
the proposition that the powers of the Com- 
mission were to be the same as those of the 
two Houses, there was no attempt in the bill 
to define what they were. With this limitation 
only, which was scarcely a limitation, the 
Commission was made the absolute judge of 
the extent of its own jurisdiction. It was to a 
Commission so constituted and with such pow- 
ers that the returns from Florida, Louisiana, 
Oregon, and South Carolina, with all accom- 
panying papers, were to be referred. It was 
made the duty of the Commission to find who 
were the legal electors and what was their vote 
in each of those States, and report it to Con- 
gress. When such report should be made, the 
House must meet without delay to hear it 



ELECTORAL COMMISSLON OF 1877. 271 

announced. If objections were offered, the 
Houses must again separate, each pronouncing 
judgment upon them in its own chamber. 
They were then to reassemble, to hear these 
judgments read. The decision of tlie Com- 
mission must then stand as vaHd, unless it 
should be rejected by the concurrent action of 
both Houses. As these Houses, however, were 
of opposite politics, such a result, whatever the 
decision might be, was one that never could be 
reached. 

Such were the methods of procedure pro- 
vided in this bill — the method in case of States 
to whose vote there was no objection, in case 
of States sending but one return to which there 
was objection, and States forwarding double 
returns to which, of course, objections would 
be numerous. These methods were to be con- 
tinued until the votes of all the States should 
be counted in alphabetical order and the grand 
result declared. Had any statement in detail 
of the powers to be exercised by the Com- 
mission been contained in the bill, it would 
have insured its instant defeat. It was essen- 
tial to the success of the measure that neither 
the members of the Commission nor those of 
the two Houses should be able to foresee what 
powers the Commission would assume. The 



272 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

form in which the bill was finally left exhibited 
an impartiality in regard to the two great par- 
ties as nearly absolute as it was possible to 
attain. 

Whatever faults the bill might have, it had 
the great merit that, should it become a law, 
and its execution not be prevented by revolu- 
tionary measures, it must make somebody 
President of the United States. This, no 
doubt, was the result that the common welfare 
demanded. It was more important that the 
presidential issue should be decided effectively 
than that it should be decided rightly. If the 
alternative were a decision wholly right which 
should be questioned by half the nation, or a 
decision wholly wrong which the whole country 
would accept, the latter, no doubt, was the re- 
sult to be desired. 

This bill of 1877, to provide for and regulate 
the counting of the electoral vote, was one of 
the great legislative measures of history. It 
exhibited ability, skill, knowledge of men, fer- 
tility in resources, fairness, patriotism, states- 
manship. It was worthy of a great crisis in 
national affairs, and deserved to be passed. 

But before we follow the fortunes of this bill 
in Congress, it will be necessary to say some- 
thing further of its relations to the two parties. 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 273 

It was from the beginning a Democratic rather 
than a RepubHcan measure. It was indeed in- 
augurated, as we have seen, in the Senate and 
House, by two RepubHcans who remained its 
faithful and efficient friends. Many patriotic 
men, of both parties and in both Houses, ad- 
vocated it from the first and continued to do so 
to the end. But the proportion of Democrats 
in both Houses, and especially in the House of 
Representatives, who supported the measure 
throughout, was much larger than the propor- 
tion of Republicans. When among Democrats, 
on their side of the House, you felt that the at- 
mosphere was friendly to the bill; while upon 
the Republican side it was regarded with gen- 
eral suspicion. The explanation is not far to 
seek. As the regular returns from the disputed 
States were favorable to General Hayes, the 
Republicans had what was regarded as a prima 
facie case, and the burden of proof must rest 
upon their opponents. The presiding officer of 
the Senate and of the two Houses, when they 
should meet together, was a Republican, and, 
whatever theories might be held, his opinions 
would have some weight in counting the vote. 
Further, the Chief Magistrate was a Republi- 
can, and one not much inclined to surrender 
when he thought he was right. He would be 



274 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

pretty likely to see to it that the man he 
thought honestly elected should be duly inau- 
gurated. Under these circumstances, the Dem- 
ocrats, or at least a majority of them, thought 
that they could lose nothing, and might gain 
much, by an impartial law which should bind 
all parties. Republicans, on the other hand, 
were naturally content to retain the advantages 
of their position. There was another consid- 
eration which affected the relative friendliness 
of the two parties to the bill. There was a 
sharp issue, as we know, between Democrats 
and Republicans in regard to the power of Con- 
gress to go behind the returns made by State 
officers. Republicans believed this to be un- 
constitutional, while Democrats declared that 
justice demanded it should be done. It was 
early understood that the bill which the com- 
mittee were preparing would be neutral on this 
point. While it would not authorize the Com- 
mission to go behind the returns, it would not 
forbid their doing so. Many Republicans felt 
that they could not vote for a measure which 
would even permit such an invasion of the or- 
ganic law. They contended that it was a com- 
promise of principle like that of 1820, which 
condemned half the country to slavery; like 
that of 1850, which gave us the Fugitive Slave 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. VS 

Law. It belonged to a class of weak conces- 
sions which had always injured the country and 
ruined every party that had touched them. 
They had a candidate, lawfully elected, and 
why should they sacrifice his rights, and the 
rights of the people that voted for him, through 
the still worse sacrifice of constitutional prin- 
ciples? I shared in the views of my party, and 
voted with the majority of my friends in the 
House against the bill. It was a mistake. We 
lost an opportunity. I did not give my vote, 
however, without much previous hesitation. I 
still have in my possession a rough outline of 
an argument in favor of the bill, which I made 
out late one night in my room, that I might 
see how it looked. In my present judgment, 
it is a better argument than one which I made 
afterwards in the House against the bill. It 
was an experiment which failed that I made 
upon my own mind. The feeling that I had 
no right to sacrifice a just cause upon grounds 
of doubtful constitutionality compelled me to 
vote in the negative. 

I must not fail to present, as pertinent in 
this connection, a much more important piece 
of personal history, which was never fully un- 
derstood by the public, and now seems, though 
quite undeservedly, to be almost forgotten. 



276 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

We have seen how important it was that the 
fifth place among the Justices of the Supreme 
Court who were to serve upon the Commission 
should be filled, if possible, by a man just half 
Democrat and half Republican. This, the 
reader will remember, was demanded by our 
arithmetic. In no other way was it possible so 
to divide the Commission that each party should 
have exactly half of it. The . man needed for 
this purpose seemed to have been supplied in 
Mr. Justice Davis, of Illinois. This gentleman 
was an able judge and a worthy man with a 
strong taste for active politics. Originally a 
Republican and an intimate friend of Mr. Lin- 
coln, he had been nominated for the presidency 
in 1872 by the Labor Reform Party, and had 
received nearly a hundred votes, the same year, 
in the National Convention of the Liberal Re- 
publicans, and had been talked of as a Demo- 
cratic candidate in 1876. These events, on 
some principle which I do not fully understand, 
were thought to have set him down about mid- 
way between the two leading parties. He be- 
longed to a highly respectable class of poli- 
ticians known as Independents. To anticipate 
a little, the impartiality of his attitude toward 
the two parties was strikingly illustrated, at a 
later period, in the United States Senate. It 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 277 

was said of him there, no doubt with some 
jocose exaggeration, that he seemed to be try- 
ing to divide his influence, his voice, and his 
vote, as equally as possible between Democrats 
and Republicans; that if he voted twice in suc- 
cession with the same party, he appeared to be 
alarmed lest he should take on the character of 
a partisan, and made haste to restore the health- 
ful balance of his mind and of his political ac- 
tion, by voting next time with the other side. 
In justice to him, it should be remembered that 
the position of independency in politics was at 
that time less understood, had been less prac- 
ticed, and hence was more difficult of graceful 
maintenance than it now is. A man as richly 
endowed as we have seen Judge Davis to have 
been, with the grace of impartiality, with a 
talent for being on both sides, would seem to 
have been the very man that was needed for the 
fifth judge upon the Commission. If the ideal 
were half Democrat and half Republican, how 
could it have been more perfectly realized } Ac- 
cordingly, it had been early understood that 
the other judges would agree upon him for the 
place, and that he would accept it, though 
doubtless feeling that there were nearly equal 
reasons both for and against his doing so. 
Assuming that Judge Davis would be the 



278 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

fifteenth Commissioner, the Democrats, with 
good grounds, counted upon his giving them 
the victory. It will be remembered that in or- 
der to elect Hayes it w^as necessary that the 
Republicans should gain all ofthe four disputed 
States. If any State or any portion of a State 
went adversely, Hayes was defeated. It was 
necessary that at least four successive decisions 
relating to these four States should all be given 
in favor of the Republicans. Now it was mor- 
ally certain — it was as certain as the future ac- 
tion of a free agent can ever be — that Judge 
Davis would never give four decisions in succes- 
sion, upon difficult and delicate questions, in 
favor of the same party. It was inevitable that 
he would not decide all these issues for the 
Republicans, and if he failed them but once their 
case was hopeless. Hence from the time when 
the main features of the forthcoming bill had 
come to be understood, until some time after 
the middle of January, there was a general 
expectation of victory among Democrats, and 
of defeat among Republicans. When you met 
a Democrat, his face wore an expression of 
evident, though restrained satisfaction, while 
Republicans looked troubled and depressed. 
This was largely due to the general impression 
that Judge Davis would be placed upon the 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 2jg 

Commission. Here wasatiotherof those causes 
which predisposed Democrats to commit them- 
selves for the bill, and Republicans to commit 
themselves against it. 

But now occurred one of those remarkable 
things which in reading fiction you stop to crit- 
icise as improbable, though they occasion no 
surprise to the thoughtful student of history. 
About the middle of January, the legislature of 
Illinois began balloting for United States Sen- 
ator. The vote was so close between Demo- 
crats and Republicans that five Independents 
held the balance of power. Several unsuccess- 
ful ballots were taken, and there seemed no 
prospect of a result until negotiations were com- 
menced for a union between Democrats and In- 
dependents, with a view to the election of Judge 
Davis. Late one evening, I heard that our 
prospective Commissioner had decided to permit 
the use of his name as a candidate. The next 
morning, entering the Hall of the House some 
time before the hour for opening, I observed 
that the Democratic side was already well filled, 
and that its occupants were collected in groups 
which appeared to be engaged in animated 
discussion. I did not intrude, but learned from 
Republican friends, whose opportunities for 
hearing had been better than mine, that our 



28o LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

neighbors were all talking about Judge Davis. 
Republicans also showed a deep interest in the 
news. It seemed to be generally admitted that 
the use of Judge Davis's name in an active po- 
litical canvass, whatever the result of it might 
be, would disqualify him for a place on the Com- 
mission. We soon learned that this view of 
the case was also taken by himself. The effect 
of the withdrawal of his name as a candidate 
for the Commission undoubtedly was to make 
Democrats less and Republicans more hopeful 
as to the result. It no doubt made some votes 
for the bill on the Republican side, and deprived 
it of some on the Democratic. But this change 
occurred quietly among the more obscure mem- 
bers. Those on both sides who had openly 
committed themselves commonly adhered to 
the positions they had taken. It was creditable 
to the patriotism and consistency of both Dem- 
ocrats and Republicans, as a body, that they 
did not permit what had occurred to change 
their purpose in regard to the bill. 

The name of Mr. Justice Bradley was now 
thought of as a substitute for that of Justice 
Davis. Of the occupants of the Supreme Bench 
whose names had not yet been considered, he 
was the most conservative. He had commend- 
ed himself to Democrats by holding strong 



ELECTORAL COMMLSSION OF 1877. 281 

opinions, when on the bench, against the consti- 
tutionahty of the Enforcement Act. He had 
held court in Louisiana, where he was popular, 
and had given a conservative opinion in the de- 
cision of the Supreme Court upon what were 
known as the "Grant Parish" cases. He had 
never been in sympathy with the original abo- 
litionists, and would probably have found it 
difficult .to attach the same importance to the 
interests of a black man that he did to those of 
a white man. Upon a comparison of views in 
regard to his antecedents, the faces of Demo- 
crats began to wear a look of returning cheer- 
fulness. They felt that, if he should be placed 
upon the Commission, they could still look for- 
ward hopefully to the result. 

Thus much it has seemed necessary to say in 
regard to the attitude of the two parties to- 
wards this great measure. Let us do exact 
justice to both. That there were some mere 
trimmers and time-servers in both parties can- 
not be doubted; but it is equally certain that 
the general tone of feeling was earnest and 
manly. The debate had a serious character 
which commended it to the approval of thought- 
ful visitors. There was much party feeling on 
both sides, but a prevalent sincerity of purpose. 
The desire to learn what duty and the common 



282 . lectuiTes and ess a ys. 

welfare demanded was general. It was no 
doubt party feeling which increased the friend- 
liness of the Democrats to the bill in the earlier 
period anci diminished it in the later. A few 
of them were bitter opponents of the bill from 
the beginning, and became obstructionists to- 
wards the end. But after making all the de- 
ductions from the credit due them which these 
faats require, it must still be admitted that a 
powerful, perhaps a controlling influence was 
exerted among them by patriotism and true 
statesmanship. We cannot withhold our ad- 
miration from the work which they or a majority 
of them did. To both parties in this crisis we 
must accord general honesty of purpose. But 
as what the Democrats did was objectively 
right, as they had the principal share in the 
support of a bill which now appears to have 
been necessary to the public order, they will 
stand fairest, so far as this legislation is con- 
cerned, upon the page of that history which is 
less curious about hidden motives than about 
the utility of measures. 

There were no Republican obstructionists. 
But it would be rash to say there would not 
have been any, had the election of Mr. Tilden 
seemed as probable as did that of General 
Hayes. 



ELECTORAL COMMLSSLON OF 1877. 283 

But it is time to inquire what progress was 
made by the electoral bill in the two Houses. 
It has been stated that this bill was submitted 
to the Senate by Mr. Edmunds, on the i8th of 
January. The debate commenced on the 20th, 
and continued almost uninterruptedly to the 
25th. The 25th and the 26th were mostly oc- 
cupied with the discussion of the subject in the 
House. This debate must no doubt be classed 
in history with the great intellectual conflicts 
of Congress. Senator Edmunds, who reported 
the bill to the Senate, and who was understood 
to be the author both of the bill and of the re- 
port, made the opening speech. It was per- 
haps the best speech made in favor of the 
measure, not only because it was learned, log- 
ical, and persuasive, but still more because it 
was wise. It contained just enough to put the 
bill in an acceptable light. It was great for 
what it omitted. It was not delivered in order to 
make a great speech, but to secure the passage 
of the bill. It e^cplained difficulties, soothed 
prejudice, conciliated opposition, and made the 
need of the country for amicable adjustment 
stand out in a clear light. He was the presid- 
ing spirit of the debate in the Senate. He was 
constantly in his place, and much of the time 
on his feet. By courteous interruptions, he 



284 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

supplemented the speeches of his friends with 
needed arguments, and helped his opponents 
to some ignored or forgotten fact which made 
a half hour's talk irrelevant or innocuous. He 
exhibited a rapier-like swiftness and point which 
considerably diminished the desire of the op- 
position to prolong the debate. It may fairly 
be said that he did more than any other man 
for the success of the bill. It was one of the 
occasions which caused the Vermont judge to 
be considered the first man in the Senate.] 
He was ably supported by Senators Bayard, j 
Thurman, Frelinghuysen, and Conkling, andj 
was warmly opposed by Morton, Sherman, 
Cameron, and Eaton. Mr. Blaine, then a new 
member of the Senate, spoke briefly but ex- 
ceedingly well, expressing his regret at not being 
able to support the bill. In the House, Hoar, 
Foster, and McCrary, among Republicans, and 
Payne, Lamar, Springer, Hill, Abram S. Hewitt, 
and Tucker, among Democrats, delivered no- 
ticeable speeches in favor of the measure. Strong; 
efforts were made against it by Garfield, Hale, 
Lawrence, and others on the Republican side, 
and by Proctor Knott and Blackburn on the 
Democratic. The debate included constitution 
al arguments, historical discussion, and patri-j 
otic appeal, enlivened occasionally, by humor^ 



I 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 285 



and witty retort. There was also some down- 
right raving. It would require a separate pa- 
per were I to indulge in quotation and appro- 
priate comment. Many of the speeches in 
both House and Senate were elaborately pre- 
pared. Some of them were remarkable for 
beautiful and impressive perorations. I com- 
mend them to the attention of those of my 
readers who are fond of literary studies. 

As the debate advanced in the Senate, and 
the bill was examined and privately discussed 
by members of both Houses, it was more and 
more evident that it would become a law. The 
tide of feeling in its favor rose higher every day, 
and the response from most parts of the coun- 
[ try greatly aided it. On the morning of January 
25, the bill passed the Senate, and it passed 
the House on the 26th. It might have received 
the signature of the Chief Magistrate on the 
following day, but President Grant was absent 
in Maryland, attending, I believe, some exposi- 
tion of mechanical industry. But, on the 29th, 
the bill was not only signed by the President, 
but was returned to the Senate with a message 
of cordial approval. On the 30th, the Com- 
missioners were all elected. The Senate chose 
the following gentlemen: Edmunds, Morton, 
Frelinghuysen, Thurman, and Bayard. The 



286 LECTimES AND ESS A YS. \ 

House chose Representatives Payne, Hunton, 
Abbott, Garfield, and Hoar. The Justices who 
had already been designated by the bill were 
Clifford, Strong, Miller, and Field; and these 
gentlemen agreed upon Mr. Justice Bradley 
as the fifteenth member of the Commission. 
On the 1st of February, the Commission organ- 
ized with Mr. Justice Clifford as president, and 
notified both House and Senate of the fact., 
On the same day, as was provided by the new^ 
law, the counting of the electoral vote com-| 
menced, and was the absorbing object of atten- 
tion in both Houses, and I might almost say; 
in the whole country, until it was completed] 
on the 2d of March. 

The members of both Houses and both: 
parties came together with cheerful faces in the 
Hall of the House of Representatives to begin 
the count. Hope and good humor prevailed 
on all sides. The spectacle was one of un- 
usual interest and had attracted visitors from 
remote parts of the country. Atone o'clock 
P. M., the doorkeeper of the House announced 
that the Senate of the United States was at the 
door. The Senators, preceded by their proper 
officers, were immediately admitted and re- 
ceived by the Representatives standing. The 
ceremonial prescribed by the law was duly 



ELECTORAL COMMLSSLON OE 1S77. 287 

observed. The President of the Senate was 
seated in the Speaker's chair, as president of 
the joint meeting. At his left sat the Speaker, 
and in front and below sat the subordinate of- 
ficers of both Houses. The Senators occu- 
pied the body of the Hall upon the right of the 
presiding officer. Two tellers were appointed 
on the part of each House. The burdens of 
the presiding officer, Senator Ferry of Michi- 
gan, who had been made President of the Sen- 
ate upon the death of Vice-President Wilson, 
were greatly lightened by the guidance and 
support afforded by the new law; but his duties 
were still delicate and arduous, and were per- 
formed with a dignity, watchfulness, impar- 
tiality, and painstaking correctness which 
secured general commendation. The counting 
went on briskly through the earlier States of 
the alphabetical list, Alabama, Arkansas, Cal- 
ifornia, Colorado, Connecticut, and Delaware. 
It was immaterial who counted the votes of 
these States. They could count themselves. 
But when the State of Florida was reached, 
double certificates were opened, and objections 
were at once heard from different parts of the 
Hall. Both certificates, together with the va- 
rious objections and all papers in the case, were 
then sent to the Commission. That tribunal 



288 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

was occupied until the 9th of February in 
reaching a result which was not achieved with- 
out much wearisome investigation and listening 
to many arguments from both sides. On the 
lOth this decision was laid before the joint meet- 
ing of Congress. It was found that the seven 
men upon the Commission who had been 
chosen avowedly as Democrats had voted for 
the Tilden electors; the seven men who had 
been chosen as Republicans had voted for the 
Hayes electors; and the conservative member 
had determined the result by voting with the 
Republicans. Objections were at once raised 
to the decision, and the two Houses separ- 
ated, the Senate voting to sustain it, and the 
House voting the opposite, which, of course, 
left it binding under the law. It would have 
been singular had there not been a somewhat 
marked change in the feeling of the parties in 
regard to the operation of the law after this de- 
cision. It may be thought that, when the law 
was passed, there was no further peril; and 
this would indeed have been true except for 
disorderly and obstructive methods. The re- 
sult of the vote must be announced before 
twelve o'clock on the 4th of March. The time 
was becoming short. Owing to delays, some 
of them unnecessary, the vote of Florida was 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 289 

not counted until the 12th. This left onl}^ six- 
teen full working days to complete the count. 
There were still three States with double re- 
turns, which of course would be sharply con- 
tested and must be referred to the Commission, 
which was a judicial body and could not be 
hurried. Minor difficulties were being raised 
for a purpose, it was thought, which increased 
the delay. But the majority of both Houses 
stood by the arrangement, and the great ma- 
chine, though heavy and slow, still ground on. 
The vote of Louisiana was counted on the 20th, 
that of Oregon on the 24th, and both were count- 
ed for Hayes. On the last day of February, 
when there were but three more working days, 
the vote of South Carolina had not been counted, 
which was also true of Vermont and Wisconsin, 
in regard to both of which captious objector 
were awaiting their opportunity. It was at 
this point that there broke forth a bitter and 
persistent opposition by means of dilatory mo- 
tions. This opposition, at one time, assumed 
such proportions as to fill patriotic minds with 
alarm lest the declaration of the final result 
should not be reached. This calamity to the 
country might not have been averted, had not 
the man for the occasion been found in Sam- 
uel J. Randall, the Democratic Speaker of 



290 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

the House. He was a warm partisan, but 
a man of firmness and conscience in regard to 
his obligations to the Constitution and the laws. 
His oath to support these was not to him 
an unmeaning form. He had a clear conviction 
that it was his duty not to permit the object 
of the electoral law to be defeated by any fac- 
tious policy of obstruction. He had a strength 
of will equal to the emergency, anci he put it 
to good use. On the 24th of February, the 
Speaker, in declining to entertain a motion 
which, though parliamentary and suitable in 
itself, was dilatory in effect, made a ruling, in- 
volving a principle of the highest importance 
and of the greatest practical value for all legis- 
lative bodies. I give his words. The Chair 
I' rules that when the Constitution of the United 
States directs anything to be done, or when the 
law under the Constitution of the United States, 
enacted in obedience thereto, directs any act 
by this House, it is not in order to make any 
motion to obstruct or impede the execution of 
that injunction of the Constitution and the 
laws." After that decision there was compara- 
tive good order for two or three days. On the 
28th of February, the Speaker having refused 
to entertain a motion which was of a dilatory 
character, a member appealed from the decision 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1S77. 291 

of the Chair. The Speaker refused to enter- 
tain the appeal. Then followed a scene of 
great clamor and confusion, the obstructionists 
insisting upon it that the Chair should admit 
the appeal. But as that officer only gripped 
his gavel the tighter, and his always long un- 
der jaw seemed to be growing longer, they had 
to abandon the effort. We then had compara- 
tive quiet until the following day, when the 
disorder reached its height and was, at times, 
of almost a threatening character. From 
ten o'clock A. M, on the ist of March until four 
o'clock A. M. on the 2d, we were constantly in 
our seats. Owing, perhaps, to an understand- 
ing reached among themselves, the previous 
night, the obstructionists made a united and 
desperate effort to waste the time of the House 
by dilatory motions. During much of this 
time, the Speaker stood in his place deciding 
questions of order in the midst of noisy and 
hostile demonstrations. He was subjected to 
a strain upon voice and nerve and physical 
strength such as it\Y men could have endured. 
At times he was visited with a storm of c;[ues- 
tions and reproaches. Would he not entertain 
a privileged motion.? He would not. Would 
he not put a motion for a recess .-^ a motion for 
a call of the House.? a motion to excuse some 



293 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

member from voting? a motion to reconsider? 
a motion to lay something on the table? He 
would not. Were not these motions in order 
under the rules? They were. Would he not then 
submit some one of them to the House? He 
would not. Was he not an oppressor, a tyrant, 
a despot? He was not. Would he not then 
put some dilatory motion? He would not. 
Would he not entertain an appeal to the House 
from his own decision? He would not. Why 
would he not? Because of his obligations to 
law. This is a condensed statement of a 
struggle which was going on for several hours. 
The scene was varied on one or two occasions 
by a proposal that the House proceed at once 
to the election of a President of the United 
States, which, of course, was ruled out of 
order. 

A better idea of what this struggle was may 
be conveyed by a quotation from the " Congres- 
sional Record." It is but just to add, as will be 
seen, that several of the persons introduced 
here were acting in good faith and not with the 
intention of increasing the disorder. 

Mr. Edefi. I call for the regular order. 
Mr. Caiiljield. I wish to make a parliamen- 
tary inquiry. Do 1 understand that the two 



ELECTORAL COMMISSLON OF 1877. 293 

hours' debate allowed by the law is to begin 
now, under the ruling of the Chair? 

The Speaker. The gentleman is right in so 
understanding. 

Mi^. Caiilfield. Well, sir, I appeal from that 
decision. I contend that there is no power in 
this House to proceed to the consideration of 
this question until we know what the question 
is. Under the present circumstances we do 
not know what the question is. 

The Speaker. That is for the House to de- 
termine, not the Chair. 

Mr. Caiilfield. But until that certificate is 
opened, it is impossible for us to know what 
objections we are to consider. 

Mr. O' Brien. We must have the certificate 
before we can discuss and vote upon this question. 

Mr. Watterson. I rise to a parliamentary- 
inquiry. I wish to know whether the progress 
of this debate is in order or not. 

The Speaker. It is in order. The gentle- 
man from Ohio (Mr. Poppleton) is recognized; 
and if he does not desire to speak, the Chair 
will recognize some other gentleman. 

Mr. O'Brien. Does not the Chair entertain 
the appeal from this decision.'^ 

Mr. Caidfield. I insist on my appeal from 
the decision of the Chair. 



294 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

The Speaker. The Chair clecHnes to enter- 
tain the appeal. 

(Cries of "That is right," and applause.) 

Mr. Springer. I hope the Chair will not 
insist upon that position. This is one of the 
most important questions that ev^er came before 
this House. (Cries of "Regular order!") I 
insist that this appeal must be entertained, and 
that we must know whether this is a case that 
has gone to the Commission, or whether it is 
now to be considered by the separate Houses. 
This is not a dilatory motion, but one that 
arises upon a vital provision of the electoral 
law; and I ask the Chair to entertain the appeal. 

TJie Speaker. The Chair considers that he 
is bound by the law — 

Mr. Springer. I want the law enforced. 

TJie Speaker. And the law is as plain as 
the day. 

Mr. Springer. If this case under the law 
has gone to the Commission, it is there now by 
the operation of the law and we have nothing 
before us. 

The Speaker. This House has it within its 
power by a majority vote to call from the Sen- 
ate that paper. 

Mr. Canlfield, Mr. O'Brien, and others. 
When .? 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 295 

TJie Speaker. Surely, gentlemen will not 
say that the Chair has that power. 

Mr. Walling. But we ask for a vote first on 
calling that paper from the Senate. 

Mr. O' Brien. We want that question de- 
cided now, whether we have the right to send 
to the Senate for that certificate. 

Mr. Beebe (who addressed the Chair amid 
cries of "Order!" and great confusion) was un- 
derstood to say, Mr. Speaker, I have stood 
with the majority of this House against every 
proposition to dela}^ obedience to this law. I 
acknowledge my obligations under that law. I 
recognize the further fact that we are here not 
only under that, but in the exercise of every 
prerogative and privilege guaranteed by the 
Constitution to this House. (Cries of " Order ! " 
mingled with applause.) Will the Chair enter- 
tain the motion — 

The Speaker. The Chair will entertain no 
motion. 

Mr. Beebe. Then I charge the Speaker with 
doing what I have complained of the Electoral 
Commission for doing, violating the very law 
under which we are operating. 

Mr. Riee. The Speaker is usurping power. 

The Speaker. The Chair usurps no power. 

Mr. Beebe. Ninety members of this House 



296 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

demand that appeal from the decision of the 
Chair, and it cannot be had. 

Mr. Mills. I hope that usurpation is not 
becoming so incapacitating as to cause usurpa- 
tion of power over members of this House. 

The Speaker. The Chair neither usurps, nor 
does he permit oppression upon the Chair. 
(Applause upon the floor and in the galleries.) 

Mr. Beebe. Will the Chair state the reason 
for this ruling.^ 

The Speaker. The Chair decides according 
to his conscience and the law. 

Mr. Beebe. Will the Chair state the reason 
for this ruling.? 

Mr. Wells ^ of Mississippi. I ask whether — 

(Here there was great confusion in the Hall, 
members rising and standing.) 

Mr. Beebe (standing on top of one of the 
desks). I demand to know the reason why the 
Chair refuses to state his reasons for refusing 
to hear an appeal. (Applause.) With all re- 
spect to the Chair, I ask him to state the rea- 
son of this ruling. 

Mr. Spriii^er. I demand that the galleries 
be cleared. 

Mr. Beebe. From my place in this House I 
now under the rules ask the Speaker of this 
House respectfully to state the reason for his 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 297 

refusal to entertain the motion which I make. 

The Speaker. The Chair gave his reasons 
at length on a similar proposition yesterday. 

Mr. Caulfield. We have no recollection of 
any such proposition having been made. 

Several Members. It never has been. 

Mr. Jones, of Kentucky. If the Chair ruled 
that way yesterday, he must have ruled wrongly. 

Mr. Franklin. We demand that the appeal 
from the decision of the Chair be placed before 
the House. 

Mr. Springer. Mr. Speaker, I move this 
House now take a recess until to-morrow at 
ten o'clock. 

Mr. Beebe. I claim that I have some rights 
upon this floor. I claim that courtesy from 
the Chair that I always have cheerfully ren- 
dered to him. 

TJie Speaker. The Chair will proceed with 
the public business. 

Mr. Brown, of Kentucky. I ask, Mr. Speak- 
er, that the officers of this House enforce 
order. 

Mr. Money. Let them try it. 

Mr. Brozvn, of Kentucky. They can do it. 

Mr. Sparks. Let them try it. 

Mr. Brown, of Kentucky. I demand that 
they enforce order upon you and all others who 



298 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

are out of order. If I were an officer of the 
House I would try it. (Applause.) 

TJic Speaker. The Chair is determined that 
gentlemen shall take their seats. The Chair is 
not going to submit longer to this disorder. 
(Loud applause on the floor and in the gal- 
leries.) If gentlemen forget themselves, it is 
the duty of the Chair to remind them that they 
are members of the American Congress. (Re- 
newed applause on the floor and in the gal- 
leries.) 

Mr. Glover. I appeal to members of this 
House — 

Mr. Sparks. The Chair is simply the Speaker 
of this House of Representatives. We are the 
representatives of the people. (Applause.) 

Mr. Becbe. I respectfully ask — 

Mr. Sparks. Look at these lobbies, Mr. 
Speaker. I have tried to get the Speaker's ear 
so that I could direct attention to them. We 
are mobbed by the lobby! Here is the rule 
(holding up the Manual), and we ask the Chair 
to enforce it. (Applause.) 

Mr. Brozon, of Kentuck}-. It is not the lobby, 
sir. 

Several Members. It is. 

Mr. Broivn, of Kentucky. The lobby would 
be ashamed of it. (Applause.) 



ELECTORAL COMMLSSION OF 1877. 29Q 

Mr. Sparks. So, too, the American people 
are ashamed of the action of members, some, 
too, claiming to be Democrats. (Applause.) 

Mr. Glover. I appeal to every member of 
this House to try to contribute something to 
its order and its respectability. The time must 
come when we must have order in this House, 
and it is the duty of every member now to give 
aid to restore order in this House. 

TJie Speaker. The Chair desires every gen- 
tleman who is not a member of this Congress 
to retire. 

Mr. Cox. I call for the reading of the one 
hundred and thirty-fourth rule, and its enforce- 
ment promptly. 

Mr. SJieakley, I ask for the reading of the rule. 

The Speaker. ^. The Chair orders that the 
spaces behind the members' desks on both 
sides of the House shall be cleared. That he 
has the right to do, and it is in the interest of 
good order. 

Mr. Cox. I have the right to have read the 
one hundred and thirty-fourth rule. I desire 
to say, with all respect to the Chair, that the 
rule should be enforced in the cloak-room as 
well as on the floor. 

Mr. BiircJiard, of Illinois. On that side of 
the House. 



300 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

Mr. Cox. On both sides of the House. 

Mr. Watterson. In the cloak-room as well 
as on the floor. 

The Speaker. The Sergeant-at-arms is dis- 
charging his duty in that connection, as the 
Chair understands. 

To have an adequate conception of this scene 
of painful disorder, one must multiply this re- 
port by three or four. No system of reporting, 
no corps of reporters, was adequate to such an 
occasion. An account of it, which was pub- 
lished in the "New York Tribune" of the fol- 
lowing day, does not seem to me to be greatly 
exaggerated. The writer says: "The whole" 
body of obstructionists "now rose to their feet 
and inaugurated such a scene of disorder as has 
probably never been witnessed in the stormiest 
scenes of Congress before. At least twenty 
were shouting and gesticulating together, and 
this number soon included the whole force of 
the revolutionists. ^ -^ -^ After about ten 
minutes of disorder, which cannot be described, 
the Speaker sent the Sergent-at-Arms among 
the desks on the Democratic side, and com- 
pelled the members to sit down. * - * His 
manner rose to the occasion. He reminded 
those on the floor that they were members of 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 301 

the American Congress, and declared that the 
Chair was resolute, and would tolerate no more 
disorder." 

The House now discovered that it had a 
master. Business began to move in its proper 
channels. The Houses met once more in joint 
session. South Carolina was counted, Tennes- 
see, Texas; Vermont, after a contest; Vir- 
ginia, West Virginia; Wisconsin, after another, 
but brief contest; and thus the roll of the 
States was completed. Then, at four o'clock 
and ten minutes, on the morning of March 2, 
1877, the President of the joint convention de- 
clared that Rutherford B. Hayes, having re- 
ceived a majority of all the electoral votes, was 
duly elected President of the United States. 
In announcing the result the presiding officer 
said, "The Chair trusts that all present, whether 
on the floor or in the galleries, will refrain from 
all demonstrations whatever; that nothing shall 
occur on this occasion to mar the dignity 
and moderation which have characterized these 
proceedings, in the main so reputable to the 
American people and worthy of the respect of 
the world." The announcement was received 
by all parties with respectful silence and ap- 
parent submission. The pent-up feeling of dis- 
satisfaction found vent through inflammatory 



302 LECTUJ^ES AND ESSA YS. 

articles in the press and much private grum- 
bhng-. There was even some wild talk of a forci- 
ble attempt to prevent the inauguration; but 
if there was ever any serious purpose of that 
kind, it was extinguished by the thought that 
a great soldier was sitting silent but watchful in 
the presidential chair. 

Two or three things are suggested by this 
narrative which it may be well to notice. 

In the first place, we can now understand 
why no reliable history of the electoral count 
of 1877 has been written. Who was there to 
write such a history.'' This nation is made up 
mostly of Democrats and Republicans. For 
certain good reasons, none of the writers of 
either of these parties have wished to give us a 
history of the count. They have instinctively 
felt that any history which should be written 
ought to be in accord with the general approval 
which now exists in the public mind of the 
great measure by which the count was con- 
ducted. Democrats are not ready to ex- 
press such approval, because the count re- 
sulted in the defeat of their candidate; and 
Republicans have felt a natural diffidence about 
commending a measure against whicli a large 
majorit}/ of them voted. This is why no 
leading man of either party has attempted 



ELECTORAL COMMLSSLON OF 1877. 303 

to give us a complete account of tlie event. 
Again, we see how absurd has been the state- 
ment that there was fraud in the count, that 
somebody was cheated by the manner in 
which it was conducted. The simple narrative 
of facts which has now been given refutes 
such a charge. If anybody was cheated, who 
was it.-^ Certainly not the Republicans; for 
their candidate was made President. Nor was 
it the Democrats; for the bill in accordance 
with which the electoral votes were ascertained 
and declared was specially their measure. A 
majority of the votes cast for it in both Houses 
were Democratic. In the Senate but one Dem- 
ocrat voted against it; and in the House but 
eighteen. The number of Democratic votes 
which it received in the House was so large 
that the bill would have passed if every Repub- 
lican had voted against it. It was opposed by 
more than two-thirds of the Republicans in 
the House, and when it was under discussion, 
Democrats reproached us for our want of pa- 
triotism and broad statesmanship in not sup- 
porting it; and there was some truth in the 
charge. If it was wrong to leave Cjuestions to 
a commission, it was a Democratic wrong. If 
the mode of choosing the commissioners in the 
House and Senate was a blunder, it was a 



304 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

Democratic blunder. If it was a violation of a 
previousgoodunderstandingwith the Democrats 
that Judge Davis should resign his place on 
the bench and be elected Senator from Illinois, 
it was a violation which was not committed by 
Republicans, but by Judge Davis himself, who 
resigned, and by the Democrats of Illinois, who 
elected him, in spite of the Republicans of Illi- 
inois, who did their best to defeat him. If 
there was unfairness in the choice of Judge 
Bradley for the fifteenth commissioner, it was 
unfairness for which i8o Democrats in the two 
Houses had provided, and which two Demo- 
cratic judges united with two Republican judges 
in consummating. In a word, if there was 
fraud anywhere in the measure, it was the work 
of an immense majority of the Democrats in 
both Houses of Congress. 

Once more, the amicable adjustment of the 
serious difficulties of 1876 and 1877 by means 
of legislation, and the fidelity to principle 
shown in the peaceable submission to the result 
by both parties — although it was so disap- 
pointing to one of them — and by the whole 
country, afford new and solid grounds of con- 
fidence in the stability of our institutions. Such 
a happy issue out of our perils makes the foun- 
dations of government seem firmer under our 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF 1877. 305 

feet. The capacity for self-control exhibited 
by the nation under the great excitement of 
the contest was a strong guarantee of a well- 
ordered and prosperous future. It showed the 
deep attachment of our people to law rather 
than revolution as a means of settling differ- 
ences. It showed, as I trust, that an impassa- 
ble gulf separates our methods and policies 
from those of the Spanish States of this conti- 
nent; that Americans are indeed a branch of 
that great Teutonic race who know how to 
make homes and build States, and how to de- 
fend and preserve them. It has enabled us to 
feel that we could approach another dangerous 
crisis in our affairs with less trepidation as to 
the result. It has increased our just pride in 
the common country. It is a noble precedent, 
and one which will be quoted in all time to fur- 
nish motives for self-restraint in heated party 
contests, to give added strength to the reason- 
ings of statesmen, and new force to the appeals 
of patriots. It ivill forever remain a conspicu- 
ous example of that moderation and love of 
settled order which are essential to the perpe- 
tuity of the Republic. 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN 

CONGRESS FROM 

I87I TO 188U 

A THURSDAY LECTURE. 

I HAVE thought that any man of average 
abiUty and education who would set himself to 
write out, as accurately as he could, just his 
own impression of the men whom he had 
known, and especially of men in any way re- 
markable, must produce a work of some value. 
He would, no doubt, labor under some disad- 
vantages. Truth is not at all times and to all 
minds as interesting as error. He who would 
write with conscientious accuracy must ques- 
tion, and sometimes reject, extreme statements, 
and extreme statements are often spirited and 
lively. He must introduce prosy qualifications, 
which, like dams on a stream, retard the flow of 
the narrative. He must free himself from party 
bias, and substitute judicial coolness for the 
warmth and color with which party bias deals. 
He must see faults in his friends and good 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 307 

qualities in his enemies; and this diminishes 
the ardor of composition. It seems a shame 
that one's enemies should have good quaHties, 
but they will sometimes have them, and then 
they must be recognized. He must check an 
attractive but misleading vivacity of style, and 
must be willing to sacrifice even a trenchant 
antithesis or a brilliant metaphor rather than 
do injustice to his fellow-men. To many all 
this will make him seem dull. But he can 
afford to make the sacrifice; and from you and 
me, who wish to know men and things as they 
are, he shall have only sympathy and approval. 

It has been in the spirit of these remarks 
that I have endeavored to treat the subject for 
the occasion, which is the Leading Speakers of 
the Congress of the United States, and especially 
of the House of Representatives, whom I knew 
and heard during the ten years from 1871 to 
1881. 

I found the prominent speakers in Congress 
to be of very different types; and to consider 
them as belonging to these types will be the 
more intelligible and satisfactory method. If 
we view them from this standpoint, we shall 
readily form an appreciative estimate of the 
power which they possessed without doing the 
injustice of demanding of them some form of 



3c8 LECTURES A ND ESS A YS. 

merit which was foreign to their nature and en- 
dowments. Keeping in mind, then, the differ- 
ences in type among Congressional speakers, I 
shall ask your attention to some of the strongest 
and best of the men who were representatives 
of their respective classes. 

The first type of Congressional speaking 
which I would name is that of the orator. This 
word I use in a sense perhaps somewhat special 
to this occasion. By the orator I mean the 
speaker who produces the strongest present effect. 
He stirs the sensibility and touches the springs of 
action. He carries his hearers with him. He 
comes upon them like waters that have burst 
their barrier. He may not be specially deficient 
in other great qualities, but the noticeable thing 
about him is that sort of rhetorical force which 
moves men — which makes them of one mind, 
and that mind the mind of the speaker. 

The most remarkable man of this class, in 
my time, was James G. Blaine. He could im- 
press himself more strongly upon the House of 
Representatives in sixty minutes — could make 
more members feel like doing what he wanted 
done — than any other man. This was a native, 
spontaneous quality. It showed itself in pri- 
vate conversation. If he joined you on the 
street, and began setting_ forth some favorite 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 309 

plan of legislation, you soon found his enthu- 
siasm contagious. Your bark had struck a 
current, and though sail and rudder might still 
do their part, the keel felt and thrilled to the 
new force. 

The foundation elements of his power were 
two: — he saw clearly, and he willed strongly. 
He was quite determined that every man who 
heard him should go along with him, and to 
this determination every power of his being 
was committed. He had singular unity of pur- 
pose. He had but one thing to accomplish, 
and that stood out before his mind as sharply 
defined as the summit of Jungfrau against a 
June morning. 

But the elements of his power should be 
considered more in detail. In the first place, 
he had great general knowledge. He knew 
something of almost everything, and of some 
things he knew a great deal. This quality 
showed itself whenever he spoke at length, in 
great wealth of reference and illustration. 
Again, he had a strong, clear style. This is 
found in his writings as well as in his speeches. 
He has no use for an obscure sentence, or a 
weak, worn-out, or superfluous phrase. 

There was another very noticeable quality in 
Mr. Blaine's speaking. It had about it an air 



3IO LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

of business. This was a quality both of his 
thought and of his style. I'here was some- 
thing important which must be done and done 
promptly. The speaker seemed hurried — not 
in the sense of being confused or losing sight 
of his plan or any detail of his plan, but in the 
sense of having on hand much responsible and 
pressing work. He could not wait, and you 
must come. You soon felt that you must have 
part in the enterprise. Not only were inatten- 
tion and indifference out of the question, but 
inaction would be discreditable. You could 
not let a strong and noble spirit grapple with 
great difficulties unaided. You perhaps had 
been absent from the House an hour, some day, 
and when you returned, Blaine was upon his 
feet. If you were a new member, and had not 
witnessed the scene before, it struck you that 
something unusual must have happened. The 
fervid, impetuous speaker, the bugle call that 
sounded through his voice, the members that 
with one accord have stopped the writing and 
talking at their desks, and are listening with 
rapt attention, and some of whom have started 
up and stepped forward with solicitous and ex- 
pectant faces — what does all this mean.? Has 
news arrived of complications with some for- 
eign power .'^ Or has rebellion broken out in 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 31 1 

some distant State ? You ask a member stand- 
ing near what it is all about. He is too intent 
upon the turn in the current sentence to hear 
you. You are growing anxious. You try to 
ascertain for yourself where in the broad domain 
of politics the speaker is. But you were not 
here when he began, and he has a long start of 
you. It will take you some time to catch up. . 
You put phrases together and draw inferences, 
but your mind is not entirely relieved of its 
anxiety for the public weal, until you perhaps 
discover that there is nothing more alarming in 
the speech than an old-fashioned arraignment 
of the Democratic Party for its sins during the 
war — such an arraignment, it strikes you, as 
you yourself have made upon the stump; S2ich 
an arraignment, and yet how different! Why 
could not you have said it sof Could you 
have spoken thus, what troops of followers you 
might have had! In all Mr. Blaine's better 
efforts there was a note of preparation which 
at once fixed attention. He seemed to be get- 
ting ready for some great occasion, and his 
hearers were summoned to be in readiness with 
him. He was rallying all his forces, and you 
felt that you must be at the mustering in. 
There was great attractiveness in this business- 
like manner, and it did not disappoint you. 



312 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

All the speaker's preparation and all his re- 
sources were made effective to a worthy end. 

It no doubt added to Mr. Blaine's weight and 
influence as an orator that he was so eminently- 
fair in debate. He was a magnanimous enemy. 
He had no thought of treating an opponent 
otherwise than as an equal. He observed, 
without grudging, all the forms of parliamen- 
tary courtesy. Credit was heartily given to 
his antagonist for all merit, whether of intellect 
or character. He quoted frankly and fairly. 
He yielded readily for explanations and correc- 
tions. He promptly qualified, when his atten- 
tion was called to it, any remark which had 
seemed to reflect upon the motives of others. 
His methods were open and manly. He used 
no "twitting and flinging." He had too much 
confidence in the strength of his cause to deem 
it necessary to resort to expedients not natural 
to him, and was, doubtless, often too much 
absorbed in his subject to think of them. No 
doubt he often looked for the weak spot in his 
adversary's armor — and it was not always 
comfortable for his adversary to find him doing 
it; but it was the logical armor and not the 
personal that he would strike through. Malice 
never, and contempt rarely, were expressed in 
his speeches. He used only legitimate weapons 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 313 

— weapons approved by the rules of civilized 
warfare. He shot no poisoned arrows. There 
were no discharges of broken glass or rusty nails. 
He never condescended to the horsewhip or 
the popgun. It might be said of him as Scott 
says of young Lochinvar, 

And save his good broadsword he weapon had none. 

Nor did he need any other. No antagonist 
ever thought of him as not sufficiently armed. 
He was quite content to trust to the force of 
his blows and the temper of his steel to give 
him the victory. The generous tone of feeling 
which he exhibited had the effect to win sym- 
pathy for his efforts, increase the satisfaction of 
his friends in his successes, and diminish to his 
enemies the bitterness of defeat. 

Their full effect was given to the qualities 
that have been named by an abounding cour- 
age which had its root in the ardor of his na- 
ture, which never failed, and which rose with 
the occasion however much the occasion re- 
quired. When battle offered, he was not only 
ready for it, but engaged in it with alacrity, 
especially if he could meet Ibemen " worthy of 
his steel." 

It should be added that the intellectual and 
moral forces of the orator found expression 



314 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

through a physical medium which was worthy 
of them. His tall, erect, strongly built, and 
commanding person; his sonorous and sympa- 
thetic voice; his not frequent but powerful ges- 
tures; his simple, unaffected, and vigorous dec- 
lamation — these endowments were sufficient of 
themselves to have given distinction to a man 
of half his ability. 

Such were some of the causes of Mr. Blaine's 
power as an orator. But they seem to account 
for it very imperfectly. They were only phe- 
nomena of another cause lying back of them 
all — the true explanation of his power over 
men — his unique and wonderful personality. 

To present the whole matter briefly, while 
Mr. Blaine's speeches contained much strong 
thought and much sound argument — enough 
strong thought and sound argument, perhaps, 
to have made the reputation of another man — 
yet his forte was not that of a close reasoner, 
nor of a debater in the sense in which I shall 
use that term. He v/as impatient of the ordi- 
nary processes of reasoning. He commonly 
reached the right conclusion, but by short and 
swift methods. He excelled all his associates 
in power of statement. The impassioned faith 
with which his propositions were poured forth 
commended them to his hearers, and generally 



LEA DING SPEA KERS IN CONGRESS. 3 1 5 

secured their assent. As Daniel Webster in 
his debate with Hayne said of Samuel Dexter: 
"His very statement was argument; his infer- 
ence seemed demonstration. "' " ""' One was 
convinced and believed and assented, because it 
was gratifying, delightful to think and feel and 
believe in unison with an intellect of such evi- 
dent superiority." The arguments of his op- 
ponent Mr. Blaine seldom attempted to refute 
in detail. He assailed and broke down his prin- 
cipal proposition, and then dismissed him. He 
felt tliat if he could carry the enemy's center 
all his lines would fall into confusion. In a 
word, he was not so much a logician or a de- 
bater as an orator. 

You will expect me to present a {^\n illus- 
trations of the peculiar power which I have 
ascribed to Mr. Blaine. 

One of the occasions when I was most 
strongly impressed by his speaking was the dis- 
cussion in the first session of the F'orty-fourth 
Congress upon the bill for general amnesty. 
This bill had been introduced by Mr. Randall 
in December, 1875, and the discussion occur- 
red in the following month. Mr. Blaine, who 
had always been favorable to amnesty, offered 
to support the bill, if an amendment could 
be adopted excepting a single name from its 



3i6 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

operation — the name of Jefferson Davis. This 
exception he demanded not on the ground that 
Mr. Davis had been the great leader in the 
treason against the Government, but on the 
ground that he was responsible for the horrors 
of the Andersonville prison — a crime, he con- 
tended, which placed him outside the regards 
of civilized men. Great excitement followed, 
and the debate became one of the ablest, most 
brilliant, and most heated to which it was my 
fortune to listen. Were any cruelties inflicted 
upon our soldiers at Andersonville.'* If there 
were, was Mr. Davis responsible for them.? 
And if he was, had it any logical connection 
with the subject of amnesty.'' These were some 
of the questions discussed. The debate contin- 
ued a week, and during the whole time, wher- 
ever the battle was hottest Mr. Blaine was to be 
found. He spoke at length several times, and 
the condensed energy of some portions of his 
speeches makes them a profitable study. I 
quote a few sentences: — 

" Sir, since the gentlemati from Pennsylvania 
introduced this bill, last month, I have taken 
occasion to reread some of the historic cruel- 
ties of the world. I have read over the details 
of those atrocious murders of the Duke of 
Alva in the Low Countries, which are always 



LEA DING SPEA KERS IN CONGRESS. 3 1 7 

mentioned with a thrill of horror throughout 
Christendom. I have read the details o{ the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew that stand out in 
history as one of those atrocities beyond imag- 
ination. I have read anew the horrors, untold 
and unimaginable, of the Spanish Inquisition. 
And I here, before God, measuring my words, 
knowing their full extent and import, declare 
that neither the deeds of the Duke of Alva in 
the Low Countries, nor the massacre of Saint 
Bartholomew, nor the thumb-screws and en- 
gines of torture of the Spanish Inquisition, 
begin to compare in atrocity with the hideous 
crime of Andersonville. ^ * '^ But I will under- 
take to say this, and, as it may be considered 
an extreme speech, I want to say it with great 
deliberation, that there is not a government, a 
civilized government on the face of the entire 
globe — I am very sure there is not a European 
government — that would not have arrested Mr. 
Davis, and wiien they had him in their power, 
would not have tried him for maltreatment of 
the prisoners of war, and shot him within thirty 
days. France, Russia, England, Germany, any 
one of them would have done it. The poor 
victim Wirz deserved his death for brutal treat- 
ment and murder of many victims, but I ahva}'s 
thought it was a weak movement on the part 



3i8 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

of our Government to allow Jefferson Davis to 
go at large and hang Wirz. I confess I do. 
Wirz was nothing in the world but a mere 
subordinate, a tool, and there was no special 
reason for singling him out for death. I 
do not say he did not deserve it — he did 
richly, ampl)^, fully. He deserved no mercy, 
but, at the same time, as I have often 
said, it seemed like skipping over the president, 
superintendent, and board of directors in the 
case of a great railroad accident and hanging 
the brakeman of the rear car. ^ ^ * I hear it 
said, 'We shall lift Mr. Davis into great conse- 
quence by refusing amnesty.' That is not for 
me to consider. I only see before me, when 
his name is presented, a man who by a wink of 
his eye, by a wave of his hand, by a nod of his 
head, could have stopped the atrocity at Ander- 
sonville. Some of us had kinsmen there, most 
of us had friends there, all of us had country- 
men there, and in the name of these kinsmen, 
friends, and countrymen, I here protest and 
shall with my vote protest, against their calling 
back and crowning with the honors of full 
American citizenship, the man who organized 
that murder." 

The amnesty bill was defeated. Mr. Blaine 
and those who sympathized with him refused 



LEADING SPEA KERS IN CONGRESS. 3 1 9 

to vote for it unless Jefferson Davis was ex- 
cepted from its provisions; and its friends 
refused to accept amnesty for anybody else 
unless it could be granted to him. Thus the 
bill failed to receive the requisite majority. 

It is not my purpose to express any opinion, 
on this occasion, in regard to the merits of 
what were known as the Mulligan letters; but 
the object of this address would be imperfectly 
accomplished, should 1 fail to notice the effect 
of Mr. Blaine's speech when he read those let- 
ters to the House. The common impression 
would, perhaps, be that Mr. Blaine must have 
appeared, at that time, like a man on the de- 
fensive — that his manner must have been 
apologetic and deprecatory. The truth how- 
ever is jtist the opposite of this. There was 
no abatement in his old pride of bearing — no 
indication that he had lost anything of his sense 
of self-respect or of the respect due him from 
others. His manner throughout an extended 
speech was not so much that of one who is called 
to give account of improper conduct as one who 
is calling others to account for having charged 
liim with such conduct. As Macaulay says of 
Warren Hastings, '* He appeared like a great 
and not like a bad man." Few men have ever 
delivered a speech that produced a stronger 



320 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

present impression. The frank presentation of 
the letters to the House, after so many prophe- 
cies that not one of them would ever be allowed 
to see the light, proved to be sufficient of itself 
to win and hold the attention of every hearer. 
The result of the effort undoubtedly was to 
bring the House, in large measure, into sympa- 
thy with the orator. 

Mr. Blaine's principal antagonist was Proctor 
Knott, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, 
which was conducting an investigation in which 
Mr. Blaine's reputation was supposed to he in- 
volved. At the close of his speech, Mr. Blaine 
turned to Mr. Knott and, with great vehemence, 
uttered a 'i^\N words which produced a sensa- 
tion in the House. I quote from the "Congres- 
sional Record": — 

''Mr. Blaine. I heard you got a dispatch 
last Thursday morning, at 8 o'clock, from 
Josiah Caldwell, completely and absolutely 
exonerating me from this charge, and you have 
suppressed it. (Protracted applause upon the 
floor and in the galleries.) I want the gentle- 
man to answer. (After a pause.) Does the 
gentleman from Kentucky decline to answer.'^" 
Mr. Knott did decline to answer for the present, 
and Mr. Blaine thereupon offered a resolution 
instructing the Judiciary Committee to report 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 321 

forthwith this telegram to the House and the 
reasons why it had been suppressed. He closed 
by saying, " I call the previous question on 
that resolution," which again elicited protracted 
applause from the floor and galleries. 

Some evidence of the powerful impression 
made by this speech, even upon the minds ot 
Mr. Blaine's enemies, was furnished by an inci- 
dent that occurred some time afterwards, as was 
stated to the House by Mr. Frye of Maine. 
Friends of Mr. Knott approached Mr. Frye, a 
friend and colleague of Mr. Blaine, and like Mr. 
Knott a member of the Judiciary Committee, 
and requested that he would agree to a report 
from that Coinmittee exonerating Mr. Knott 
from blame in suppressing the cable dispatch, 
giving as a reason for asking this favor that Mr. 
Knott "desired exculpation because he had 
received unfriendly looks and unfriendly criti- 
cisms from his own side of the House." 

In justice to Mr. Knott, who was regarded 
by those who knew him as a fair-minded man, 
it should be added that, when he took the 
floor, he offered as his defense for withholding 
the telegram that — to use his own phrase — he 
"had a suspicion that it was a fixed-up job," 
and wished to retain it for further examination. 

I have not time to introduce many examples 



322 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

of the power of the orator, but I cannot leave 
the subject without adding that Mr. Frye of 
Maine, now Senator Frye, and my colleague, 
John A. Bingham, were both largely endowed 
with the same class of gifts as those which 
made Mr. Blaine so distinguished a member of 
the House. 

I next invite attention to the speaker as 
teacJier. This is a recognized and influential 
type in our Congress. 

The teacher is a kind of speaker who de- 
lights in the exhaustive treatment of his subject. 
When he has made a speech, nothing affords 
him greater satisfaction than to hear it reported 
that he has left nothing further to be said upon 
the theme. He introduces all the affirmative 
arguments, and replies to all the objections. He 
treats the subject in itself, and in its relations to 
other fields of thought. He is not insensible 
to present effect and to the importance of votes, 
but these do not tempt him to neglect the 
producing of a symmetrical, complete, sys- 
tematic exposition of his theme. He explains 
those parts of the subject which have been im- 
perfectly understood. Those aspects of it 
which have been exposed to prejudice, he sets 
in a more favorable light. He makes allow- 
ance for the opposition of opponents, and can 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 323 

understand why persons with such surround- 
ings as theirs should have fallen into error. 
This mode of speaking is likely to, make con- 
verts in case of any question which is not 
decidedly partisan. What will make converts, 
in case of questions which are of that character, 
1 have never yet ascertained. The members of 
the House like to have at least one such speak- 
er as I have described. When he is to address 
them, they gather about and listen. They ex- 
pect a speech that will be an authority on the 
subject discussed. They crowd around the 
speaker, and congratulate him when he con- 
cludes. They read his speech carefully when 
printed, subscribe for many copies, and send 
them to their friends. Such a speech becomes 
widely circulated in the press and is often 
quoted. If the teacher adds to the endow- 
ments already mentioned good qualities of style 
and delivery — if he be an accomplished rheto- 
rician — he will achieve a position of great prom- 
inence. He will have a large following, may 
be promoted in due time from the House to the 
Senate, and may even become President of the 
United States. Such a man was James A. 
Garfield. 

General Garfield's thoroughness of prepara- 
tion, when a great subject was to be discussed, 



324 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

was very noticeable. Whatever time was nec- 
essary to this end he did not hesitate to take. 
He availed himself of a wide range of reading. 
If the business of the House was unimportant 
or uninteresting, he would be absent from his 
seat. At such a time, it was safe to say to an 
inquirer that he was in the Congressional Li- 
brary. Mr. Spofford, the Librarian, told us 
; that he made more use of the books of this li- 
brary than any other member of Congress. He 
also knew how to make his friends useful on 
such occasions. He made no secret of what he 
was doing. He accepted thankfully from others 
suggestions, facts, references, the verification ot 
quotations. He was anxious that nothing 
should be omitted that was necessary to the 
completeness of his speech. Yet {^\n men were 
more truly original in the plan and the gener- 
al treatment of a subject. Food, from whatever 
source it may be furnished, is not more really 
converted by digestion into nourishment for 
the individual body than were the contribu- 
tions which he received made subservient to an 
original individual purpose. The result of his 
preparation was that he brought out speeches 
of great and lasting value. His addresses up- 
on such questions as the Census, Banking and 
Currency, Specie Resumption, and Revenue and 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 325 

Expenditure, are still treasuries of facts and ar- 
guments for all who wish to master these 
themes. He was indeed the great teacher ot 
Congress and the nation. His fondness for 
exhaustive treatment was so great that he not 
infrequently introduced into his speeches mat- 
ter not wholly pertinent to the business in hand. 
But this did not much disturb either him or his 
audience. He spoke not only for the hour but 
for the century, not only to the House but to 
the nation. 

He was not so anxious to produce present 
effect as to realize some ideal treatment of his 
theme. His whole manner was in accord with 
this idea. His speeches consisted, for the most 
part, of a succession of thoughtful, clean-cut 
sentences of about equal interest throughout. 
Commonly there was nearly as much warmth 
of emotion in the beginning as in the middle or 
the end. As you listened you missed that 
growth of feeling, that kindling passion to 
which you were accustomed in the great ora- 
tors, and which seemed to be reasonably ex- 
pected in an assembly essentially popular and 
called to daily action. His speeches were 
chargeable with monotony — a monotony ot 
excellent thoughts suitably expressed. The 
eiT.dless variety, the constant surprises, the 



326 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

impassioned climax which characterized the 
orations of Mr. Blaine were wanting in the dis- 
courses of General Garfield. All these things 
marked him as a teacher rather than orator. 

General Garfield was not a great debater. 
Debate was not the sort of speaking that he 
affected. He could do good work of that kind 
when it was necessary, but he preferred to be 
excused from it. I have expressed this judg- 
ment with some diffidence, because it would 
seem to be contrary to the received opinion. 
The leading journals have spoken of him as a 
great debater, and a distinguished Senator was 
once quoted to me with approval by Vice- 
President Wheeler as saying that General Gar- 
field was the greatest debater in the Congress of 
the United States. But all this can only mean 
that he was a very great speaker, as he certainly 
was. It comes from an inaccurate definition of 
the word debater. I never knew a man attain 
high excellence of this kind, who had not some 
natural love, in the rhetorical sense, of personal 
conflict, — a quality which General Garfield evi- 
dently lacked. Sharply controverted points he 
avoided when he could, and such points, no 
doubt, were often small ones. Perhaps no man 
ever spoke so much in Congress with so little 
personal collision. I said to him once, "They 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 327 

complain of you because you don't assault the 
Democrats." He replied, "Somehow I never 
could learn to do nagging." He delighted in 
impersonal discourse, and there can be little 
impersonal discourse to the true debater. He 
preferred to discuss a subject upon its broad 
merits without regard to the question whether 
others agreed with him or not. He seldom 
made personal references to those who differed 
from him. Most of what was said against him 
he left unnoticed. His idea seemed to be that 
the arguments of his opponents would all natu-' 
rally be answered in the course of his own 
speech without further specification. 

It follows that General Garfield was not what 
was called in the House an aggressive speaker. 
His personal courage was beyond question. 
This had been shown both on the battle-field 
and in public life. But he was an amiable man, 
and his amiability — indeed his very candor and 
fairness — imposed limitations upon his aggres- 
siveness. He could fight a good fight, and 
sometimes did so, if it was necessary. But his 
common thought was, why should it be neces- 
sary .? Why should he stand up to apply harsh 
epithets to those who were opposed to him.? 
He dreaded the blows he must give quite as 
much as the blows he must take. The few 



328 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

occasions on which he felt constrained to make 
a personal attack were followed by misgivings. 
He was afraid that he might have gone too far. 
He would sometimes say to an opponent after 
a contest was over, *'Well, I trust I did not 
treat you unfairly." All this made him lova- 
ble, and was intrinsically the better way, but in 
so stormy an assembly as the House of Repre- 
sentatives it sometimes diminished the power 
of his party leadership. 

A single incident may illustrate what I have 
said. During the third session of the Forty- 
fifth Congress, the Democrats of the House 
held a caucus at which a course was agreed 
upon to be pursued in the House in order to 
accomplish the repeal of certain Republican 
legislation avowedly intended to secure freedom 
and purity of elections in the South. On a 
subsequent day, when the House was in Com- 
mittee of the Whole, and when Mr. Blackburn, 
of Kentucky, a leading Democrat who had been 
president of the caucus, was acting as chairman 
of the committee. General Garfield obtained 
the floor and said that he had not spoken upon 
the questions under discussion because he did 
not choose to take part in a moot debate — that 
ordinarily the House was a deliberative body, 
but to-day it had met merely to register the 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 329 

edict of a party caucus, and that it was presided 
over by one who was under orders to conform 
his rulings to a certain poHcy. Mr. Blackburn 
asked another member to take the chair, came 
down upon the floor, and, in an imperious 
manner, demanded of General Garfield an ex- 
planation of his words, adding that, if the 
General should stand by them, his answer 
would be as plain and emphatic as it would 
be short. Mr. Blackburn's manner seemed 
so defiant, that many Republicans greatly 
wished that General Garfield should merely re- 
ply that his words had doubtless been taken 
down accurately by the reporter, that he was 
not aware of any obscurity in them, and that 
Mr. Blackburn was at liberty to examine them 
at his leisure. But General Garfield did what 
was, no cioubt, better than this. He felt that 
his words had been rhetorical rather than 
strictly accurate. There was no evidence that 
any literal orders had been given to Mr. Black- 
burn, and so he said that he had intended no 
personal reflection upon the gentleman from 
Kentucky, that he had only meant that the 
whole Democratic party in the House, includ- 
ing Mr. Blackburn, had been under a sort ot 
"moral duress" from the caucus action which 
had prevented their acting freely in the House, 



330 LECTURE^ AND ESSA YS. 

and thus liad robbed it of its deliberative char- 
acter. Mr. Blackburn graciously accepted this 
explanation, and we had peace. Some Repub- 
licans complained that General Garfield had 
shown a want of proper spirit, but it is now 
evident that, if he made a mistake, it was in 
using the words in the first place, and not in 
qualifying them afterwards. 

It is hardly necessary to add in this presence 
that General Garfield had a gooci English style — 
a st}-le characterized by simplicit}% clearness, and 
strength. He was sparing in the use of orna- 
ment. He was more intent in putting you in pos- 
session of his thought than in having it said that 
there was grace in his way of doing it. Yet 
there are passages where the mere wealth and 
fullness of thought rise, without conscious ef- 
fort, to a chastened beauty which is more agree- 
able to a refined taste than more elaborate 
adornments — ^just as the fainter scent of the 
new mown clover affords more pleasure than 
the concentrated sweets of the perfumer, or, as 
we prefer the perfume of roses to that of ottar 
of rose. 

General Garfielci is not a very quotable wri- 
ter. In his speeches the connection is close 
and the merit remarkably uniform. In an ad- 
dress an hour in length you will find scarcely 



LEA DING SPEA KERS IN CONGRESS. 33 1 

one feeble sentence and not many sentences 
which rise to the hi^^her plane (jf feelinf;^. De- 
tach'ed paragraphs are therefore likely to do 
him injustice, to give an inadequate idea of his 
strength. I will venture, however, to quote a 
few of the more vivacious passages from his 
speech in the House on the Constitutional 
Amendment for the Abolition of Slavery: — 

" We shall never know why slavery dies so 
hard in this republic and in this hall till we 
know why sin has such longevity and Satan is 
immortal. With marvelous tenacity of exist- 
ence, it has outlived the expectations of its 
friends and the hopes of its enemies. It has 
been declared here and elsewhere to be in all 
the several stages of mortality — wounded, dy- 
ing, dead. ^ " ^ I know of no better illus- 
tration of its condition than is found in Sal- 
lust's admirable history of the great conspira- 
tor Catiline, who, when his final battle was 
fought and lost, his army broken and scattered, 
was found far in advance of his own troops, 
lying among the dead enemies of Rome, yet 
breathing a little, but exhibiting in his counte- 
nance all that ferocity of spirit which had char- 
acterized his life. So, sir, this body of slavery 
lies before us among the dead enemies of the 
republic, mortally wounded, impotent in its 



332 LECTURES AND ESSA VS. 

fiendish wickedness, but with its old ferocity of 
look, bearing the unmistakable marks of its in- 
fernal origin. •5«- ^ ^ On the justice of the 
amendment itself no arguments are necessary. 
The reasons crowd in on every side. To enu- 
merate them would be a work of superfluity. 
To me it is a matter of great surprise that gen- 
tlemen on the other side should wish to delay 
the death of slavery. I can only account for 
it on the ground of long-continued familiarity 
and friendship. I should be glad to hear them 
say of slavery, their beloved, as did the jealous 
Moor, 

Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. 
Has she not betrayed and slain men enough } 
Are they not strewn over a thousand battle- 
fields.'^ Is not this Moloch already gorged with 
the bloody feast.-* Its best friends know that 
its final hour is fast approaching. The aveng- 
ing gods are on its track. Their feet are not 
now, as of old, shod with wool, nor slow and 
stately stepping, but winged, like Mercury's, to 
bear the swift message of vengeance. No hu- 
man' power can avert the final catastrophe." 

I was permitted to hear Senator Sumner only 
a few times, but when I did hear him, he im- 
pressed me, like Garfield, as belonging to the 
class of the teacher. He was not a debater, 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 333 

nor was he, in the sense used here, an orator. 
He was a great essayist, and a marvelous rhet- 
orician, and his hearers were accustomed to 
look to him in both these capacities, to be in- 
structed in facts and principles rather than to 
be stirred to action. 

1 served in two Congresses with Governor 
McKinley. In both these, his thoroughly pre- 
pared and instructive addresses classed him 
with Garfield and Sumner as a teacher in Con- 
gress, as he has since become, in the highest 
degree, a teacher of the whole people. 

In one Congress, I had the privilege of hear- 
ing Ellis H. Roberts of New York. Deservedly, 
he might be placed in the same class — that of 
the teacher. 

The next type of Congressional speaker that 
claims our attention is the debater. Debate 
means intellectual conflict — conflict not only 
with ideas but with men. It demands argu- 
mentative power, some taste for personal con- 
troversy, familiarity with the subject, self-con- 
trol, quickness. The genuine debater, while 
he should be thoroughly informed, and should 
have established convictions upon questions be- 
fore the House, has not much use for set 
speeches. These would often be an encum- 
brance rather than a help. He must be pre- 



334 



LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 



pared to do just as much or just as little speak- 
ing each day, as the state of business requires. 
He must be always ready, must never be taken 
by surprise, must lose no opportunity. On ac- 
count of the tendency to deliver, print, and cir- 
culate prepared speeches, our Congress does 
not furnish a very favorable school for the train- 
ing of debaters. But in spite of this disad- 
vantage, some great debaters have been pro- 
duced in our national legislature. 1 used to 
think the best debater in the House of Repre- 
sentatives was John A. Kasson, of Iowa. He 
made no attempt to deliver great speeches; but 
was always prepared to aid in discussing, ana- 
lyzing, and sifting the questions before the 
House. If there were good reasons for a prop- 
osition, he knew of them; if there were ob- 
jections, he did not overlook them. It was not 
his habit when an opponent had delivered an 
elaborate speech, to ask the House to adjourn 
to give him an opportunity to prepare a reply. 
He replied, on the spot, in clear, neat, and vig- 
orous English, pursuing his antagonist from 
point to point, refuting all his arguments so 
thoroughly, that at the conclusion there seemed 
to be nothing left of the hostile speech. 

Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia was also a 
great debater. He was put forward by his 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 335 

party to make the principal effort in reply to 
Mr. Blaine in the amnesty debate. His speech 
was a great one, and would have made deeper 
impression but for certain awkward inconsist- 
encies in his record. The moderate and reason- 
able opinions which he expressed in the House 
appeared to be contradicted by addresses which 
he had made upon the stump in his own State, 
and which had been published in the papers 
there. Some helpful person had sent copies of 
these to Mr. Blaine, who did not fail to call at- 
tention to them, as much to the amusement of 
members as to the embarrassment of his antag- 
onist. As I made quotations from Mr. Blaine's 
speech, I will reproduce some paragraphs 
from that of Mr. Hill. They are, in themselves, 
a noble appeal to our sympathy and are worthy 
of notice as representing the tone of feeling 
maintained by the more reasonable class of 
Southern men in Congress. 

"Sir, war is always horrible; war always 
brings hardships; it brings death, it brings sor- 
row, it brings ruin, it brings devastation. And 
he is unw^orthy to be called a statesman look- 
ing to the pacification of this country, who will 
parade the horrors inseparable from war for the 
purpose of keeping up the strife that produced 
the war. 



336 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

" I do not doubt that I am the bearer of un- 
welcome messages to the gentleman from 
Maine and his party. He says that there are 
Confederates in this body, and that they are 
going, to combine with a few from the North 
for the purpose of controlling this government. 
If one were to listen to the gentlemen on the 
other side, he would be in doubt whether they 
rejoiced more when the South left the Union, 
or regretted most when the South came back 
to the Union that their fathers helped to form, 
and to which they will forever hereafter contrib- 
ute as much of patriotic ardor, of noble devotion, 
and of willing sacrifice as the constituents of 
the gentleman from Maine. O Mr. Speaker ! 
why cannot gentlemen on the other side rise to 
the height of this great argum.ent of patriotism } 
Is the bosom of the country always to be torn 
with this miserable sectional debate whenever 
a presidential election is pending.? To that 
great debate of half a century before secession 
there were left no adjourned questions. The 
victory of the North was absolute, and God 
knows the submission of the South was com- 
plete. But, sir, we have recovered from the 
humiliation of defeat, and we come here among 
you, and we ask you to give us the greetings 
accorded to brothers by brothers. We propose 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 337 

to join you in every patriotic endeavor, and to 
unite with you in every patriotic aspiration, 
that looks to the benefit, the advancement, the 
honor, of every part of our common country. 
Let us, gentlemen of all parties, in this centen- 
nial year indeed have a jubilee of freedom. We 
divide with you the glories of the Revolution 
and of the succeeding years of our national life 
before that unhappy division — that four years' 
night of gloom and despair — and so we shall di- 
vide with you the glories of all the future. "^ "^ 
"Brave Union men of the North, followers 
of Webster and Fillmore, of Clay and Cass, and 
Douglas — you who fought for the Union for the 
sake of the Union, you who ceased to fight 
when the battle ended, and the sword was 
sheathed — we' have no quarrel with you, 
whether Republicans or Democrats. We felt 
your heavy arm in the carnage of battle; but 
above the roar of the cannon we heard your 
voice of kindness, calling, 'Brothers, come 
back!' And we bear witness to you this day 
that that voice of kindness did more to thin the 
Confederate ranks and weaken the Confederate 
arm than did all the artillery employed in the 
struggle. We are here to cooperate with you; 
to do whatever we can, in spite of all our sor- 
rows, to rebuild the Union; to restore peace; to 



338 lecture's AND ESS A YS. 

be a blessing to the countiy; and to make the 
American Union what our fathers intended it 
to be — the glory of America and a blessing to 
humanit}'." 

It was remarkable quickness and power in 
debate, joined with parliamentary experience 
and knowledge of business, which made Mr. 
Hale, of Maine, now Senator Hale, so efficient 
a leader in the House. In the Forty-sixth 
Congress I met and heard Mr. Reed of Maine. 
In his speeches he already gave promise of be- 
ing what he has since become — one of the most 
trenchant, pointed, and effective debaters whom 
the House has ever seen. Later, his brilliant 
history as Speaker of the House has made him 
universally known. 

Mr. Hawley of Connecticut, since Senator 
from that State, Mr. Conger — afterwards Sen- 
ator Conger — and Mr. Burrows, both of Michi- 
gan, and my colleague, Mr. Butterworth, had 
all, in different ways, marked excellence as de- 
baters. 

The great lazvycrs of Congress are perhaps 
entitled to a separate notice in this paper. 
They were, in some degree, at least, a distinct 
type of Congressional speakers. They were 
fastidious about phrases, strong in precedents 
and in rules of interpretation, and would some- 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 339 

times make speeches so acute, so logical, and 
marked by such Euclidian neatn^ess of demon- 
stration that it was a positive pleasure to listen 
to them. The flavor of old masters and srreat 
authorities in their speeches was rather agree- 
able than otherwise, and if, at times, a mild 
contempt appeared for those who did not know 
the law, it was readily forgiven. Some of the 
great lawyers of the Senate were Judge Ed- 
munds, Mr. Conkling, and Judge Thurman. 
Mr. Edmunds was not only a great lawyer, but 
had the courage of his convictions — a quality 
in lawyers, especially those who are looking to 
a seat on the bench, which is rising into higher 
esteem ever}^ day. Mr. Conkling, though not 
so great a lawyer as Judge Edmunds, was a 
greater orator, and could he but have freed 
himself, in larger measure, from self-conscious- 
ness, when addressing the Senate, it would 
have added to his weight apd acceptableness. 
Judge Thurman had a high reputation as a 
sound constitutional lawyer. Among the great 
lawyers of the House were Rockwood Hoar and 
his brother George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, 
Mr. Lapham of New York, Mr. Carlisle of Ken- 
tucky, Mr. Shellabarger and Mr. Paine — later 
Senator Paine — both of Ohio, and Randolph 
Tucker of Virginia — all men of high character 



340 LECTURES 'A ND ESS A YS. 

and attainments. David Dudley Field was also, 
I suppose, a great lawyer, but he did not ap- 
pear before the House so much in that charac- 
ter as in the role of a politician. 

Two members of the House whose term of 
service was far too short for the public interest, 
employed a kind of speaking which 1 know not 
how better to designate than to call \\. judicial, 
so fairly did they seem able to weigh the ar- 
guments both for and against every proposi- 
tion under discussion. I refer to General Cox 
of Ohio, and Professor Seelye of Massachusetts. 
With these crentlemen micrht be named, as of 
like spirit with them, that excellent man and 
excellent member of the House, William A. 
Wheeler of New York, afterwards Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

Several other types of speaking might be 
mentioned. 

Mr. Dawes of Massachusetts, and Mr. Beck of 
Kentucky, who were both afterwards in the Sen- 
ate, and who were commonly members of 
the Committee on Ways and Means or that on 
Appropriations, dealt much in figures and esti- 
mates, and might have been called the business 
leaders of the House. They were men of great 
usefulness, and always commanded attention 
whenever fiscal interests were under discussion. 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 341 

Abram S. Hewitt of New York was a thouorht- 
ful and instructive speaker upon all questions 
of business. My colleague Charles Foster was 
a clear and useful speaker upon financial sub- 
jects. To this class of business speakers be- 
longed Mr. Blount of Georgia, Mr. Atkins of 
Tennessee, and Mr. Farwell of Illinois, after- 
wards Senator from that commonwealth. 

Were it not outside of my plan for the pres- 
ent occasion, and indeed impracticable, to de- 
vote much time to the Senate, it would be a 
pleasure to consider the merits of the great 
business leaders of that body, such as Mr. Mor- 
rill of Vermont, and our own distinguished Sen- 
ator Sherman. But this attractive subject must 
be deferred for a future lecture. 

The wits of the House were S. S. Cox of 
Ohio and New York, always; General Butler of 
Massachusetts, at times, and in the earlier part 
of his career, Proctor Knott of Kentucky. 
Mr. Cox was capable of making serious and 
even philanthropic speeches as well as witty 
ones. He did useful work in connection with 
the Life Saving Service and the Department of 
Indian Affairs. General Butler had merit as a 
lawyer, and Mr. Knott seemed to have profited 
early and wisely by a remark of Senator Corwin 
made not long before his death, that the great 



342 LECTURES -A ND ESS A YS. 

mistake of his life had been to yield to the 
temptation to become a maker of funny speech- 
es. R. G. Horr of Michigan, who generally 
engaged in the discussion of grave pubHc ques- 
tions, and who has since become widely known 
as a luminous writer upon the "New York Tri- 
bune," was, in the Forty-sixth Congress, found 
to be a match for any member in witty repartee. 
There are many of my colleagues of whom I 
have not yet spoken, and to whom I cannot 
give as much time as I could wish and as their 
merits would justif}'. Mr. Parsons had fine 
gifts as a speaker — especially a certain niagnet- 
ic entJiusiasDi. His friends thought that his 
term of service in the House was too brief to 
make his gifts properly felt there. Mr. Dan- 
ford was heard with pleasure on account of a 
candid and convincing clearness. Mr. Keifer, 
afterwards speaker, had a sustained force which 
greatly impressed the House. The ability and 
high character of Judge Upson always secured 
for him a respectful hearing. Judge Lawrence 
commanded attention by his legal learnin.g 3.\-\d 
large knoivledge of business. Judge Ambler 
had a thorough acquaintance with our foreign 
affairs, and spoke with energy and vivacity. 
There were other members from Ohio o^ equal 
merit, but I must forbear. 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 343 

Another class of speakers in the House — and 
the last to which I shall refer — might be desig- 
nated as the attractive declaimcrs. Of this 
class were Mr. Voorhees of Indiana, Mr. Black- 
burn of Kentucky, Mr. Hooker of Mississippi, 
and General Banks of Massachusetts. They 
had sonorous and musical voices, and a fluency 
which nothing but the Speaker's gavel could 
arrest. They were not deficient in interesting 
and valuable thought, and this, set off as it was 
by a fine elocution, was sure to command the 
attention of the House, and both the attention 
and the applause of the galleries. 

Further types of Congressional speaking 
^ might be discussed, but those I have named 
are the principal ones. It is matter of regret 
to me that the limits of this address compel 
me to omit the names of many really good 
speakers and useful members of the House. 

The young people of my audience are now, 
perhaps, disposed to ask what is the practical 
relation of this discussion to their own attain- 
ments and future work. What does it mean 
for you.? You will say that the men of whom 
I have spoken had special gifts, such extraor- 
dinary powers in certain directions as you can- 
not hope to emulate; and you inquire whether 
they had not some qualities in common — in 



344 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

common with each other, and with all useful 
public speakers — which you might hope to 
reach. I reply that they had such qualities — 
qualities which were the common soil out of 
which grew all their gifts, and which must sus- 
tain the power of eloquence wherever it is pos- 
sessed. Of two of these qualities I will speak. 
In the first place, I noticed in all the distin- 
guished men whose names I have introduced, a 
certain scholarly quality. By this I do not 
mean that they had mastered the amount of 
Latin and Greek usually prescribed in a college 
curriculum; though, as a matter of fact, they 
had generally done this. I do not mean that 
they had acquired more or less of science or 
philosophy or modern languages; though, 
doubtless, most of them had studied these 
branches of liberal culture. I do not mean that 
they were graduates from college, though it so 
happens that about three-fifths of them were. 
It was not until I had written thus far that I 
examined the record upon this point, and I 
then found that of the fifty-two men whose 
names I have used in illustration of my sub- 
ject, thirty-two were graduates from reputable 
colleges and universities. But what I do mean 
more than any other one thing when I say that 
these men, almost without exception, had a 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 345 

certain scholarly habit of mind, is that they 
were men who could not bear to think or speak 
in a confused or slovenly manner. Their 
thought must be clear, and they must give it 
clear expression. They must know what they 
wished to say, and say only that. They could 
take no satisfaction in an obscureorclumsyprop- 
osition. When I listened to the best thought of 
some of the best of these men, it seemed to lie in 
their minds like a diamond in the bottom of a 
spring, so clear was it in itself, and so clearly 
revealed. This scholarly quality is the fruit of 
much close and systematic thinking, of much 
weighing of thought and expression, of much 
self-discipline, of many mortifying discoveries of 
self-deficiencies, of much collision with other 
minds, whether in books, in society, or at 
school — collision which imparts polish, and 
sometimes strikes fire. This scholarly quality 
is within the reach of you all. 

Another quality which I noticed in nearly all 
of these men was earnestness of character. 
They may not have been professors of relijj^ion, 
though I think most of them were. They were, 
at least, in earnest. They were no triflers. 
Life and its responsibilities and its rapidly ap- 
proaching close were not to them a jest. 
There was unlimited work to be done, and but 



346 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

little time to do it. Ennui and indifference had 
no place in their souls. They found the 'world 
interesting. Its burdens, its progress, its memor- 
ies, its destinies, its fears, its hopes — all claimed 
their sympathy. Their hearts swelled and some- 
times their eyes filled, when they discussed the 
welfare of a great empire which they and their 
hearers might do something to promote. There 
was some principle, some doctrine, some policy, 
some cause, which they loved better than life, 
and they made you feel it. They belonged to 
a generation that had momentous and terrible 
issues to meet. Some of them had exposed 
their lives for their country upon the battle- 
field. Some of them had had a share in the 
work of breaking the chains of the slave. 
Some of them had joined in unparliamentary 
but righteous applause on the floor of the 
House, in December, 1864, when that sentence 
was read from the message of Abraham Lincoln 
in which he declared, that if the people should, 
by whatever mode or means, make it an exec- 
utive duty to re-enslave those that had been set 
free by the Proclamation of Emancipation, 
another and not he must be their instrument to 
perform it. Some of them had aided in fram- 
ing the new amendments to the Constitution. 
Even those of them who had been on the 



LEADING SPEAKERS IN CONGRESS. 347 

wrong side of the great issues had been terribly 
in earnest. Earnestness was the common 
quality of these men, and it showed itself not 
only in action, but in living thought expressed 
in words that burned. 

This quality also may be yours. I^.arnest- 
ness is a quality of character, and character, 
even the highest, is, with God's help, of your 
own forming. The great issues are not all 
dead. New ones constantly arise. The groan 
of burdened humanity is still heard. Sin and 
oppression still make their desperate fight. 
The voice of God still calls. Even now the 
contest waxes warmer and comes nearer. Never 
was there a time when an earnest heart, a clear 
thought and a word that fits it, could do better 
work in the world than thev can now. 



JOSEPH AS A STATESMAN. 

[BiBLIOTHECA SaCRA, JULY, 1 897.] 

So general has been the interest, in our 
country, during the past few months, in the 
discussion of the merits of pubhc men and 
public questions, from the standpoint of eco- 
nomic policy, that it may not be unsuitable to 
consider in this place, the Bible idea of what 
fits a man for responsible trust under govern- 
ment. And as the concrete is not only more 
attractive to most minds, than -the abstract, 
but may even give us clearer views of abstract 
principles than we could attain without it, I 
have' chosen for my subject, Joseph as a 
Statesman. 

I. In developing this theme, let us consider, 
first, some of the qualities which Joseph had 
exhibited before he was chosen to be ruler over 
Egypt, and see whether they were such as to 
justify his appointment. Afterwards we will 
inquire how far our ideal of a statesman is met 
by the character and ability which he displayed 



JOSEPH AS A STATESMAN. 349 

when actually in power as Pharaoh's prime 
minister. 

I. To begin with the preparatory qualities, 
it is evident, in the first place, that he had been 
endowed by nature with remarkable talents for 
administration. He was a born organizer and 
manager. He was so made that wherever he 
went he must put things to rights. For disor- 
der, unless they prevented Www by force, he 
must substitute order; for embezzlement and 
fraud, uprightness and open dealing; for irre- 
sponsible recklessness, strict accountability; for 
bad and confused accounts, those good and me- 
thodical; for waste and extravagance, economy 
and thrift; for disobedience and eye-service, 
obedience and fidelity; for dull-eyed indolence, 
bright-eyed industry; and for all slatternly and 
dirty methods, those of cleanness and scru- 
pulous care. When one of the Greek phi- 
losophers was taken prisoner in battle, and ex- 
posed for sale as a slave by the enemy in the 
market-place, he was asked what he could do. 
** Proclaim," he replied "that now there is an 
opportunity for one who would like to buy a 
master." 

When Potiphar bought Joseph he bought a 
master — at least a great manager — without 
having it announced to him beforehand. When 



350 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

Joseph came into his house he began taking 
charge of its interests, and every one gave place 
to him. Potiphar made him overseer over his 
house, and all that he had he put into his hand; 
and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that 
he had in the house and in the field. So perfect 
did his confidence in Joseph become, that it is 
said he left all thathe had in Joseph's hand, and 
he knew not aught he had, save the bread which 
he did eat. 

When Joseph was sent to prison on a false 
charge, this administrative ability was again 
displayed. So impressed by this was the keep- 
er of the prison, that he soon committed all 
the prisoners to Joseph's hand, and whatsoever 
was done there, he was the doer of it. The 
keeper of the prison looked not to anything 
that was under his hand, because the Lord was 
with him, and that which he did the Lord made 
it prosper. 

2. Again, when Joseph was called to pow- 
er, he had already shown that he was a man of 
absolute fidelity to a trust. 

When a mere boy of seventeen, he was 
placed by his father with his elder brothers in 
charge of the flock. He discovered evil con- 
duct in these brothers, and reported it to his 
father. They highly disapproved of this course. 



JOSEPH AS A STA TESMAN. 351 

and hated him for it. A feehng hke theirs, and, 
I suppose, for Hke reasons, exists to the pres- 
ent day. But Joseph reasoned tliat tlie family 
had common interests the proper management 
of which was essential to the common welfare; 
that his father, under God, had the supervision 
of these interests, and could make this super- 
vision successful only by having full knowledge 
of the manner in which each member of the 
family was performing his part; that he himself 
had been intrusted by his father with a share 
of the common responsibility, and that, having 
discovered that his brothers had gone wrong, 
fidelit}^ required that he should inform his fath- 
er, so that, by timely admonition, the evil 
might be corrected. This duty he performed 
without regard to the consequences to himself. 
The needed admonition, though nodoubt given, 
was disregarded. The brothers went from bad 
to worse, but the pitiful relations in which they 
were finally placed to their brother, abundantly 
vindicated his conduct. 

When tempted and importuned to sin in Pot- , 
iphar's house,andvirtually threatened with some 
great calamity if he did not yield, his fidelity to 
his trust was again conspicuous. His master 
had intrusted him with all that he had; he 
would not betray him. God had bountifully 



352 LECTURE^ AND ESSA YS. 

blessed him: he would be true to his God. 
3. And this brings me to notice another 
quality which was characteristic of him h'om 
early youth; which was with him, as we have 
seen, in Potiphar's house; which shone forth 
when he was in prison; which was strong upon 
him when he was first brought into the presence 
of Pharaoh, and which was indeed the controll- 
ing force of his whole career and his whole life 
— and that was his constant recognition of his 
accountability to God. God was his sovereign, 
and he would obey him; his father, and he 
would love and serve him; his friend, and he 
would commune with him; his benefactor, and 
he would consecrate all to him. For God he 
felt a sweet and awful reverence, which sancti- 
fied every purpose of his heart. His mind had 
a habit of constant reference to God in all that 
he undertook. "I have heard," said Pharaoh, 
**that thou canst understand a dream to in- 
terpret it." Joseph replied, " It is not in me. 
God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." 
*' God," he exclaimed at another time, *' hath 
made me forget all my toil." To his brothers 
who bitterly remembered their past sinj'^he said, 
"Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with 
yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for God did 
send me before you, to preserve life." But the 



JOSEPH AS A STA TESMAN. 353 

whole history so abounds with these references 
to the Divine Providence, that justice cannot 
be done to it by a ^^w brief quotations. " I fear 
God," was the declaration of Joseph to his 
brethren, and no quality is so well fitted as the 
fear of God to inspire and strengthen and ele- 
vate statesmanship. With what an added 
glory it gilds the name of such men as William 
of Orange and Hampden and Wilberfcrce and 
Gladstone! No quality, when sincerely cher- 
ished, will sooner win the sympathy of the peo- 
ple. Bismarck has said, on several occasions, 
that Germans fear nothing but God. Some 
German university, anxious, I suppose, to en- 
courage this nascent sentiment in the Iron 
Chancellor, conferred upon him the degree of 
Doctor of Divinity, which he accepted with 
thanks. Let us hope that reverence for God 
may be a growing grace of his character. 

4. I add that the character of Joseph ap- 
pears to have been, from his youth, in all 1 e- 
spects irreproachable. No charge that was 
true could be made against it. He seems to 
liave been as nearly faultless as any mere man 
mentioned in sacied history. There was one 
occasion when, if anything could iruly ha\e 
been urged against him, it would certainly have 
been done; and that was when Pharaoh nom_ 



354 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

inated Joseph to his royal council to be, next 
to himself, chief ruler over Egypt. The pro- 
posal thus suddenl}^ to advance a Hebrew slave, 
taken, perhaps, but an hour before from prison, 
over the heads of all the old nobility, to the 
premiership of the kingdom, would naturally 
excite a feeling of jealousy in the minds of the 
great lords of the court. It is noticeable that 
when Joseph, with no thought of the result as to 
himself, advised that some discreet and wise 
man should be set over the land in preparation 
for the approaching calamity, Pharaoh's coun- 
cillors expressed their approval — the thing 
seemed good in the eyes of all his servants; but 
when he asked them what better m'an than 
Joseph could be selected for this purpose, they 
appear to have been silent — the record gives no 
account of any reply. I cannot resist the con- 
viction that they had something of the feeling, 
though I hope not in so bitter and murderous 
a form, with which Haman learned, after hav- 
ing recommended a public triumph to the man 
whom the king delighted to honor, that Mor- 
decai, and not himself, was the man — some- 
thing of the feeling with which the princes of 
Darius saw that Daniel was to be made chief 
president of the realm. If anything could have 
been said against the character of Joseph, or 



JOSEPH AS A STA TESMAN. 355 

even against his personal appearance and man- 
ner, now was the time to say it. But not only 
was his character impregnable, but his bearing 
was faultless. A handsome young man of 
thirty, with a goodly and well-favored person, 
he bore himself in Pharaoh's presence with def- 
erence and with self-respect. Slavery and im- 
prisonment had not hurt the tone of his native 
manliness. All he lacked, when he left the 
prison, to make him appear before Pharaoh, as 
a chivalrous gentleman, w^as that he should 
shave himself and change his raiment, and this 
he had found time to do. And so the lords of 
Egypt, when asked if Joseph was not the man 
for the hour, were silent. But where were 
Potiphar and his zvifef Why did they not 
come to the help of these disappointed nobles, 
with their miserable falsehood.^ Now is their 
opportunity. Let them speak now or forever 
after hold their peace. Perhaps they were dead. 
The wicked sometimes do not live out half their 
days. If they were living, Potiphar may have 
discovered, by subsequent transactions, that, on 
certain subjects, the word of his wife must be 
taken with some allowance. And Potiphar's 
wife may have come to feel that the best thing 
that could happen to her was never to have her 
lie mentioned again. 



356 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

I have said tliat Pharaoli, so far as we can 
learn, could get no answer from his lords to the 
question which he asked. And so he answered 
for himself. "And Pharaoh took off his ring 
from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, 
and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and 
put a gold chain about his neck; and lie made 
him ride in the second chariot which he had; 
and they said before him, 'Bow the knee': and 
he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt." 

5. Again we notice that Joseph was ap- 
pointed to office on the sole ground of his 
merit. No effort was made by him or by any 
other human being to obtain the place for him. 
No petitions were circulated, no deputations 
waited upon Pharoah, no favorite's favorite was 
quietly solicited to use his influence, no one 
even asked the king's wife to talk with her hus- 
band, in order that this man might have a 
cabinet position. He was not a "favorite 
son," nor even a "dark horse." Tiiere was 
nothing to give him the place but simply his 
fitness for it. Pharaoh's reasons for appointing 
liim have been given to the world. "And 
Pharaoh said unto Joseph, 'P^orasmuch as God 
hath showed thee all this, there i.^ none so dis- 
creet and wise as thou art; thou shalt be over 
my house, and according unto thy word shall all 



JOSEPH AS A STA TESMAN. 357 

my people be ruled.' " Joseph had given two 
evidences of broad statesmanship: first, he had 
clearly foreseen a great national calamity which 
no one else could have foreseen; and second, 
he had prepared a plan to meet it. Pharaoh 
thought that the man who had done all this 
was the man to put the plan into execution, 
and he committed the work to his hands. It 
was a piece of sound practice in the civil ser- 
vice. There was, practically, a competitive ex- 
amination, in which Joseph was first, and all 
the others were nowhere. There was no other 
human being who had any idea of the future 
evil or of the way to avert it. 

II. Having thus spoken of some qualifica- 
tions for public position possessed by Joseph 
before he took office, let us next briefly con- 
sider the qualities which he exhibited after he 
came into power, or how he did his work as a 
statesman. 

I. And here 1 remark, first of all, that when 
appointed to the place of prime minister, he at 
once and wholly gave himself to the duties of 
the office. To him the position was no sinecure. 
He knew that it would task all his powers to 
fill it successfully, and he decided not to spare 
himself in meeting the responsibility laid upon 
him. He was no courtier, and he had no jeal- 



358 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

ousies. He cherished no malice, and he re- 
tained no grudges — a quality of highest value 
in a statesman. He had no enemies to punish. 
He had kept his mind pure and sweet. Sun- 
shine itself was not whiter or sweeter or more 
luminous than the soul of Pharaoh's chief ruler. 
In return for the terrible wrong which his 
brothers had done him, after having adminis- 
tered to them enough of loving discipline to 
make them see and repent of their sin, he gave 
them a possession in the best of the land and 
nourished them with bread according to their 
families. He had no thought of staying at 
court to watch against the intrigues of those 
who wished to supplant him. Probably he did 
not believe in the existence of such persons, or, 
if he did, he had no time to give them. He 
lived in the field. The sacred writer says, 
*'And Joseph went out from the presence of 
Pharaoh and went throughout all the land of 
Egypt." To protect the land from the coming 
evil, we now have a man well equipped in mind 
and heart, with a clean conscience and a serene 
breast, and a man free h'om self-seeking and 
with an eye single to his duty, a man with 
nothing on his mind but the work to be done. 
2. It has been said that no man can be- 
come a great statesman by merely attending to 



JOSEPH AS A STA TESMAN. 359 

the petty details of administration. He must 
have an object that will fill the mind and en- 
large the heart. And this brings me to remark 
that the history of Joseph meets this re- 
quirement. His objects were noble, and be- 
neficent, and worthy of a great ruler. He 
undertook to save a great race and a large part 
of the world from extinction. A famine for 
Egypt meant a famine also for Abyssinia, 
Arabia, Syria, and Palestine, and sometimes 
even for the remoter, populous regions around 
the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates. The 
causes of this are well understood. A writer in 
Lange's Commentary upon Genesis says, "Aside 
from the fact that Egypt, in the early times, was 
a granary for the neighboring countries, and 
that they therefore suffered also from every 
famine that came upon it, it is a thing to be 
noticed that the rain-season for these lands, as 
well as the rising of the Nile, was conditioned 
on northern rainy winds." "All countries," 
says Moses in the Book of Genesis, "came into 
Egypt to Joseph to buy corn, because the 
famine was sore in all lands." There was no 
presumption in the claim of Joseph that God 
had sent him into Egypt as his agent to ac- 
complish a vast, beneficent plan. "God," said 
he to his brethren, " meant it unto good, to 



36o LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

bring to pass as it is tliis day, to save much 
people alive." To the same effect is a passage 
in the 105th Psalm: ''Moreover he called for a 
famine upon the land, he brake the whole staft 
of bread. He sent a man before them, even 
Joseph, who was sold for a servant. "^ * "^ The 
king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the 
people, and let him go free. He made him lord 
of his house, and ruler of all his substance, to 
bind his princes at his pleasure and to teach his 
senators wisdom." So far then as the greatness 
of his object is concerned, no statesman in his- 
tory appears with more dignity than Joseph. 
The contemplation of it fills and warms the 
imagination, and imparts to the mind a noble 
expansion. But for some plan like that of 
Joseph, the highest civilization then known to 
the world must have perished with the dwellers 
by the Nile; the church of God in the earth 
must have been blotted out in the persons of 
the patriarchs and their families, and many 
thousands of people in adjoining countries 
must have perished. It was not Oriental ex- 
travagance, but a swift insight into the magni- 
tude of the occasion, which made Pharaoh be- 
stow upon Joseph the name " Zaphnath-paa- 
neah," which in Lange's work is translated 
"Preserver of Life," or "Saviour of the world." 



JOSEPH AS A STA TESMAN. 361 

3. Once more, not only was Josepli a states- 
man with a grand object, but the means which 
he employed were worthy of the object, and 
were chosen with the greatest wisdom. His 
measures were adequate and reasonable — they 
would accomplish the object, they were not op- 
pressive, and they were carried out with the 
greatest tact and skill. 

To appreciate this it may be necessary to 
look a moment at the economic difficulties 
which he had to meet. Political economists 
tell us that a young nation which has prospered 
so far as to have a full year's subsistence in ad- 
vance, has taken an important step in the way 
of progress. It is stated by statisticians that the 
aggregate wealth of Great Britain, which is the 
richest country in the world, is only equal to five 
or six times — let us say six times — its annual pro- 
duction. Its expenditure is less than its pro- 
duction, because it is constantly adding to its 
Avealth. Hence it is estimated that its total 
wealth is equal to about eight times its annual 
expenditure. If, therefore, production in Great 
Britain were suddenly to cease, and the nation 
had to fall back upon its accumulated wealth 
for subsistence, then, if expenditure were to con- 
tinue as free as in the past, at the end of eight 
years the country would be reduced to absolute 



362 LECTURES AND ESSA YS. 

beggary. The lands, the houses, the factories, 
the docks, the harbors, the ships, the railways, 
the cattle, might still be there; but they would 
not belong to the people of England, but to 
somebody who should have advanced upon 
them the means of subsistence. I do not like 
to anticipate, but I cannot help thinking what joy 
it would then give to a great people, standing on 
the brink of extinction, could it be suddenly an- 
nounced that they could be put back into pos- 
session of all that they had had, with produc- 
tion renewed, on condition that henceforth they 
would pay one-fifth of their annual production 
to the crown.- And what honor would be paid 
to any prime minister, no matter whether it 
might be Lord Salisbury or Mr. Gladstone, who 
should have carried them through this dreary 
period of decay, and brought them to so happy a 
result ! 

Our knowledge of Egypt is not complete 
enough for the purposes of accurate compari- 
son, but her abilit}' to pass through long pe- 
riods of unproductiveness must have been much 
less than that of Great Britain. To attempt 
to name a definite ratio between the aggregates 
of wealth in the two countries would be mere 
conjecture, but I deem it safe to say, and in 
this I think I should be sustained by thought- 



JOSEPH AS A STA TESMAN. 363 

ful readers of history, that the wealtli per capita 
of Great Britain, measured by its value in the 
necessaries of hfe, was more than double that 
of Egypt. Moreover the expenses of the Egyp- 
tian government were very great for so small a 
country. Her officials lived luxuriously, and 
her Pharaohs thought it necessary to support 
an army of four hundred and ten thousand 
men. Production in Egypt was mostly agri- 
cultural, and when the crops failed, she was 
speedily impoverished. In fruitful years she 
had considerable manufactures and trade, but 
when there was no more corn, these also lan- 
guished. Years, therefore, when the Nilcvfailed 
to water and to fertilize the soil were years of 
terrible destitution. There were now coming- 
seven years of plenty to be followed by seven 
years of famine. The problem, therefore, was, 
how to make the years of plenty, while they 
lasted, support the seven millions of the popu- 
lation, maintain the army, and pay the expenses 
of the government, and yield a surplus large 
enough to support people, government, and 
army through the seven years of nearly 
total unproductiveness. I almost think it the 
most difficult problem that any statesman ever 
successfully solved. One thing to be done 
would of course be to warn the people of the 



364 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

coininf^ famine, to exhort them against waste, 
to urge them to lay up all the corn they could 
spare for the time of want. This would make 
an effective impression upon the thoughtful and 
prudent, but very little upon the mass of the 
people. The improvidence of the Eastern races 
is proverbial. An average Egyptian would hard- 
ly be able to see why he should lay up corn 
this year for a famine that is to come seven 
years hence. This may seem strange, but 
some of our own people cannot be taught to 
save something in July for the following Janu- 
ar\'. Joseph's plan, therefore, was that the 
government should supplement the partial 
preparation which was all that the people could 
be persuaded to make, by collecting each year, 
in the form of a tax, a liberal share of the corn 
produced, and storing it up until it should be 
needed. When explaining Pharaoh's dream, he 
named one fifth as the share to be taken, but 
froin the language used in describing the exe- 
cution of his plan, I infer that, in practice, he 
may have taken more. 

We shall now see Joseph visiting all parts of 
Egypt, organizing the people, appointing sub- 
ordinates, building store-houses, punishing pec- 
ulators. Even during the years of plenty, he 
will encounter many difficulties. There will 



JOSEPH AS A STATESMAN. 365 

be dissatisfaction, impatience, irritation, even 
mutiny, among the people. Some will think 
the tax too high; others will wonder that so 
much power should have been placed in the 
hands of a Hebrew slave; others still, as one 
year of plenty succeeds to another, will be 
skeptical about the years of famitie, and will 
begin to think that they are an invention of the 
government to enrich itself. Those who are 
too indolent or too dull to think will have posi- 
tive opinions as to the wisdom of his system; 
those who are too selfish to cooperate will 
doubt his disinterestedness; those who are 
watching their opportunity to steal will sus- 
pect his integrity. He must soothe, explain, 
rebuke, or punish, as the case may require. 
He must have courage, tact, patience, good- 
nature, self-control. But, at length, the years 
of plenty are passed, and the years of famine 
have begun. The people are encouraged to 
live as long as possible upon what they have 
saved, and then the store-houses are opened. 
Now Joseph can enforce a strict economy in the 
use of grain among the people, by limiting tiie 
amount to be sold to individuals or families. 
The people brought him money to be exchang- 
ed for corn so long as it lasted, and next sold 
him their cattle, and finally their lands. They 



366 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

even speak of their bodies as being for sale, 
and Joseph himself says, " Behold, I have 
bought you this day." We must not make 
the mistake, however, of supposing that this 
implies a condition of chattel slavery, such as 
was once known in our Southern States. The 
context shows that it meant nothing more than 
what was implied in their having parted with 
all they had — their money, their cattle, and 
their lands — and being now in a state of de- 
pendence upon the generosity of Joseph. They 
could ask to be nothing more than servants to 
the king. Everything was gone, and their con- 
dition was indeed sad enough. But if you will 
once more read the passage, I think you will 
feel that the cheerful frankness with which they 
acknowledge their beggared condition, implies 
that the character and the very face of Joseph 
have inspired them with hope of something 
better. 1 think they were not altogether taken by 
surprise when Joseph exclaimed, "Yes, you are 
beggars, but you shall not remain so. Years ot 
plenty are now coming again. Go back to your 
lands and sow them once more. I will give you 
the seed for the first year, and you shall possess 
the lands as heretofore, except that you shall 
henceforth pay one-fifth of the annual produce 
into the king's treasury." "Four parts shall 



JOSEPH AS A STATESMAN. 367 

be your own, for seed of tlie field, and for your 
food, and for tliem of your households, and for 
food for your h'ttle ones." I don't remember 
to have noticed whetlier the T^^gyptians were in 
the habit of shouting in lionor of tlieir rulers, 
but if they were, I will venture to say that old 
Nile had never before been so startled in his 
bed as by the shout that went up from the peo- 
ple that day. It was indeed a great deliver- 
ance for the people — a great triumph for the 
ruler. To me it appears to be the best single 
piece of work ever done by a statesman. 

Under the circumstances the tax of one-fifth 
of the produce was certainly low. No doubt 
it was higher than the former tax, which is con- 
jectured to have been a tenth. It was just that 
the government should receive something for 
its extraordinary service, and it may have been 
rendered necessary by its growing wants. If 
the increase in taxation was a tenth, then that 
tenth is the measure of the final injury of this 
unparalleled famine to the people of Egypt. Did 
any other statesman ever reduce such a calam- 
ity to so small a minimum } 

The reasonableness of this tax of one-fifth 
of the produce will be still more evident if we 
compare it with rates prevalent among our- 
selves at the present day. In most growing 



368 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

Ohio towns, the property-holder is taxed from 
twenty-five to thirty mills to the dollar. If we 
assume the average income of the citizen from 
all his property to be six per cent, or sixty 
mills to the dollar — an estimate which is high 
enough — he then pays to the Government five- 
twelfths or one -half of his '* produce." If we 
can pay a tax like this without complaint, the 
Egyptians under Joseph certainly had no rea- 
son to feel oppressed by the pa) nient of one- 
fifth. 

I must not leave this part of my subject 
without noticing a grave charge made by some 
critics against Joseph as a man and as a states- 
man. It is said that although an able minister, 
at heart he was a courtier, and that, in the 
interest of the king, he inflicted a permanent 
injury upon Egypt by changing the whole body 
of agriculturists from a community of freeholders 
to a community of tenants of the crown. Before 
the time of Joseph, it is contended, the people 
owned the land themselves; after his time the 
king owned it. Joseph thus destroyed that 
class who are the pride and strength of every 
land where they exist — the yeomanry. At 
firr^t I felt perplexed by this. On the surface 
cf the narrative it seemed to be true. I re- 
membered the just pride with which our New 



JOSEPH AS A STA TESMAN. 369 

England ancestors regarded <"heir warrantee 
deeds to the rocks on which they stood, and I 
said it would have been a great calamity to 
them to have been changed into mere tenants 
of the President of the United States. But it 
soon occurred to me to inquire in what sense 
the lands of the people were theirs before the 
time of Joseph, and in what sense they were 
Pharaoh's after that time. No doubt that be- 
fore Joseph the people called the land theirs, 
but was it theirs in a sense which prevented the 
dispossession of the farmers of large districts 
when the Pharaoh wished to give an estate to 
a successful soldier.? Was it theirs in a sense 
which would protect them from a repartition of 
the land whenever the royal policy required it.'^ 
Certainly not. The king was an absolute mon- 
arch. His will was law. He was the only 
legislative power. He made the laws, and he 
made the judges who interpreted and applied 
the laws. Mr. Samuel Birch, the keeper of the 
Egyptian Antiquities in the British Museum, a 
great authorit}', says, in his edition of Wilkin- 
son's Egypt, that a new Pharaoh re-invested 
even the territorial aristocracy with their lands, 
cither on the ground that they were only feudal 
tenants, or that the king was the landlord of 
the whole country. Wilkinson, following He- 



370 LECTURES AND ESS A YS. 

rodotus, states that Rameses the Great ordered 
a repartition of lands among the peasants. 
This was indeed hiter than the time of Joseph, 
but the kings before Joseph were certainly not 
less absolute than those who followed him. 
The only security which the people had, before 
Joseph, for the continued possession of their 
lands, was found in the forbearance and good 
sense of their kings. This security generally 
did not fail them, sometimes it did. Substan- 
tially the same state of things existed after 
Joseph, except that growing wealth and civili- 
zation were favorable to fair dealing, perma- 
nency, and good order. Further, under the 
arrangement made by Joseph, which appears 
to have continued at least until the time of 
Moses, and probably much longer, the grati- 
tude of the people to the government as their 
preserver, and the gratification of the govern- 
ment over its doubled and now adecjuate reve- 
nues from the lands, no doubt made the mutual 
relations of king and landowners more satisfac- 
tory and less liable to disturbance than they 
had been before loseph's time. I will venture 
to say that the title of the farming class to their 
lands was treated with more respect, and was 
more like that of fee simple, after the new sys- 
tem had been introduced by Joseph than it 



JOSEPH AS A STATESMAN. 371 

ever had been before. So much for the charge 
that Joseph deprived the Egyptians of their 
ancient title to the soil. 

Such, very imperfectly presented, was the 
statesmanship of Joseph. The subject is full of 
lessons upon none of which can we dwell, but 
any one of which might be expanded into 
an essay. In what other portion of human 
history is the providence of God, in its relation 
both to public and to private life, more wonder- 
ful, more encouraging, or better fitted to pro- 
duce faith in him.' Where else can a finer 
example be found of that courage in national 
affairs which faces an appalling calamity at its 
worst, abating nothing from its terrors, and 
then prepares to meet it and avert its worst 
effects.'* From what other leaf of human ex- 
perience do we obtain so clear a view of the 
value, the blessing, the irresistible might, 
whether for the statesman or the man, of that 
greatest quality of the soul which is variously 
named the fear of God, personal integrity, a 
clear conscience, a heart of love, disinterested- 
ness, devotion to the common welfare.'* Disin- 
terestedness ! how respectable, how prevail- 
ing, how universally approved it is! It is 
the very soul o^ successful statesmanship. It 
was the animating spirit of the statesmanship 



372 LECTURES AND ESSA VS. 

of Joseph; and when that spirit sliall fully take 
possession of and control the statesmanship of 
our own country, in that one expression of the 
divine goodness, all the dark problems that 
perplex us will be solved. 

From this study of Joseph as a statesman, 
we turn, with unusual satisfaction, to consider 
the character of the new administration which 
has just assumed power at Washington. I 
would not introduce, in this place, anythin^c^ 
which could be thought an expression of party 
feeling, but I have a strong impression that 
good men of all parties are looking forward 
hopefully to the next four years. It is occa- 
sion for deep thankfulness to all patriotic minds, 
that a President has recently been inaugurated, 
over forty-five States, who, for many years, 
with unaffected piety, has worshiped God as 
his Sovereign and his Redeemer. The genu- 
ineness of his religious character, which has not 
been questioned; his single-hearted devotion to 
such measures as, in his honest judgment, will 
best promote the common welfare; the .sym- 
pathy which he has constantly expressed 
for sound morals, general education, reverence 
for law, and honest government; his irreproach- 
able private character, and the estimable per- 
sonal qualities which he has exhibited in all the 



JOSEPH AS A ST A TESMAN. 373 

relations of life; his true friendliness to ail 
Americans; the abilit}' and candor of his official 
papers; the sound judgment, the moderation, 
and freedom from personality which distinguish 
the innumerable speeches which he made dur- 
ing the canvass; the affability, the dignity, and 
the courteous reserve with which he received 
the thousands of visitors who waited upon him 
at his home; the high character of the officers 
whom he has gathered about him in his Cabinet 
— all these qualities and acts, which remind us oi 
the statesmanship of Joseph, furnish ground for 
hope that the administration upon which we 
have now entered will prove to be one of the 
most useful, one of the most catholic, and one of 
the purest which the nation has ever seen. 



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